It was not difficult to guess that something acute had happened to him very recently. Jessie Mary suddenly experienced a guilty pang. Yet why Macgregor should have come back to her now was beyond her comprehension. Yon yellow-haired girl in the shop could not have told him anything――that was certain. And though she had not really wanted him back, now that he had come she was fain to hold him once more. Such thoughts made confusion in her mind, out of which two distinct, ideas at last emerged: she did not care if she had hurt the yellow-haired girl; she could not go to the dance on Macgregor’s money. So gently, sadly, she told her lie; “Ay, there’s somebody else, Macgreegor.” Which suggests that no waist is too small to contain an appreciable amount of heart and conscience. A brief pause, and Macgregor said drearily: “Aweel, it doesna matter. I’ll awa’ hame.” And went languidly down the stairs. “It doesna matter.” The words haunted Jessie Mary that night, and it was days before she got wholly rid of the uncomfortable feeling that Macgregor had not really wanted her to go to the dance, and that he had, in fact, been “codding” her. Whereas, poor lad, he had only been “codding” himself, or, at least, trying to do so. By the time he reached the bottom step he had forgotten Jessie Mary. * * * * * Once more he tramped the streets. At home Lizzie was showing her anxiety, and John was concealing his. When, at long last, he entered the kitchen, he did not appear to hear his mother’s “Whaur ha’e ye been, laddie?” or his father’s “Ye’re late, ma son.” Their looks of concern at his tired face and muddy boots passed unobserved. Having unlaced his boots and rid his feet of them more quietly than usual, he got up and went to the table at which his mother was sitting. He took all the money――all――from his pockets and laid it before her. “There’s a shillin’ each for Jeannie an’ Jimsie. I’m no’ needin’ the rest. I’m wearied,” he said, and went straightway to his own room. John got up and joined his wife at the table. “Did I no’ tell ye,” he cried, triumphantly, “that Macgreegor wud dae the richt thing?” Lizzie stared at the little heap of silver and bronze. “John,” she whispered at last, and there was a curious distressed note in her voice, “John, d’ye no’ see?――he’s gi’ed me ower much!” CHAPTER ELEVEN As a rule tonics are bitter, and their effects very gradual, often so gradual as to be hardly noticeable until one’s strength is put to some test. While it would be unfair to deny the existence of “backbone” in Macgregor, it is but just to grant that the “backbone” required stiffening. And it is no discredit to Macgregor that the tincture of Christina’s hardier spirit which, along with her (to him) abundant sweetness, he had been absorbing during these past weeks, was the very tonic he needed, the tonic without which he could not have acted as he did on the Monday night following his dismissal.