summon up these scenes, appealing to them for corroboration? What was it they seemed to say was true—true as if written up before her in letters of fire? There was no time for her to reason or think. For here, as it chanced, was this very man—this Donald Ross—coming down the wide steps from her own door. And all her soul was in revolt. Her wounded pride—her sense of humiliation—scorched her like flame. How had this man dared to lift his eyes to her? Unabashed he had come into the same room with her—he had breathed the same air—he had touched her hand: a contamination that was a poisoned sting. And the people of Lochgarra, who had seen him and her walking together: were they cognisant of his low amours? They had wagged their heads, perhaps? They had looked the one to the other? "I half-expected to meet you," said Donald Ross. There was no answer. But Mary Stanley did not lower her head, or avert her face; she was too proud for that; her heart might be beating as though it would burst its prison, but to all outward appearance she was quite unmoved. She passed him, pale and cold and silent; and he stood on one side, looking at her, without a word. She went into the house; she took no notice of Käthchen, who was still in the hall; she made for her own room, and locked herself in there—voiceless, tearless, with all the fair fabric of her life, its aims, and dreams, and ideals, its still more secret and trembling hopes, become suddenly and at one blow a tragic desolation of wreckage and ruin. CHAPTER VII. "’TWAS WHEN THE SEAS WERE ROARING." It was early morning out at Heimra; the sky comparatively clear as yet, though there was a squally look about the flying rags of cloud; the sea obviously freshening up, and already springing white along the headlands. And here at the little landing-slip were Coinneach Breac and Calum, waiting by the side of the yacht’s boat, and from time to time conversing in their native tongue. "I am not liking the look of this morning," said Coinneach, "with the glass down near half-an-inch since last night. But if the master wishes me to go, then it is I who am ready to go, and I do not care where it is that I may be going. For who knows the anchorages better than himself, and the tides, and the currents, and the navigation?" And then presently he said, in a more sombre tone: