The keys were to be handed over by Elspat Gordon to a clerk of Mr. Luke Sharpe's when he chose to come for them. Elspat received the instructions drowned in tears, and as a spell against evil put in her pocket some grains of wheat, as it is, or was, a superstition in Scotland that in every grain there is the representation of a human face, said to be that of the Saviour, and hence the efficacy of the spell. In the railway-carriage Jack crouched at Mary's feet, and, looking up in her eyes, whined and whimpered, for dogs have strange instincts. All that was left to the sisters of Birkwoodbrae was the bunch of freshly-gathered roses which each carried in her hand, and many times did Mary bury her hot and tear-stained face among their cool and fragrant leaves. 'Good-bye!' she whispered in her heart to many an inanimate but familiar object, as it seemed to fly past and vanish, till the darkness of descending night shrouded all the scenery. Then Mary closed her eyes, and strove to think, while the clanking train glided swiftly and monotonously on. The past, the present, and the future, so far as Colville was concerned, seemed to have melted into thinest air; or perhaps the past alone, with its brief life and glow of love and hope, thrust itself poignantly forward. CHAPTER XX. THE HEIR OF ENTAIL. The sudden departure of the sisters from Birkwoodbrae, few knew precisely for where, caused something like consternation--at least, a great deal of commiseration--in the place they had left behind them. Their sweet, soft, ladylike faces and presence were missed erelong from the pew in which they had sat on Sundays from childhood; countless acts of kindness, goodness, charity, and benevolence were remembered now and rehearsed by cottage hearths and 'ingle-lums' again and again, and all deplored that the places which knew them once would know them no more! When, two days after their departure, Captain Colville, with a magnificent diamond ring for Mary, and intent on taking up the story of his love where he had left it off, rode over to Birkwoodbrae, he went in hot haste to the manse for intelligence, and then he and Dr. Wodrow looked blankly in each other's face. 'Gone--what does it all mean?' impetuously asked the captain, whose wounded hand was in a black silk sling, and who looked pale and thin. 'It simply means that they have abruptly left us, and we may never see them again,' replied Dr. Wodrow, with unconcealed grief and irritation. 'Gone--gone!' exclaimed Colville, changing colour, or losing it rather; 'why did I not sooner tell them who I was--why act the part I did, and lure you into doing so, too?' 'Ay--why, indeed,' groaned the poor minister. 'You see what strength of character they both possess--Mary, certainly, at least.' 'And they have left no address--no clue?' 'None.'