Duncan Reed was so glad to see them. He was not so very much altered in appearance. They found him seated in the sunlight, with a very large Bible on his lap, and an immense pair of hornrimmed spectacles on his nose. Duncan drops out of the story here. He is gone years ago. Suffice it to say he had his wish--he sleeps beside the sea. On their return journey they visited the ruins of old Nancy Dobbell's cottage. Harvey McGregor made one remark which explains much. "That old woman," he said, "alone knew my secret." Passing onwards towards the forest, Kenneth ventured to ask for the first time about Jessie Grant. "Heigho!" replied Harvey; "I cared not to mention it in my letter, but that family were in reduced circumstances even before the father and mother died; now poor Jessie lives at Helensburgh in a humble cottage with her aunt." "And she is not--" "No, not married." A thrill of joy went through Kenneth's heart. It was not unaccompanied by a kind of satisfied feeling of pride. He could not quite forget the time when proud Mr Redmond offered him the position of ghillie on his premises. Need I say that Kenneth soon found Jessie out? She was more beautiful than ever in his eyes. Archie and Kenneth took rooms at Helensburgh--for sake of the fishing. At least Kenneth said it was for sake of the fishing; but he did not look Archie quite straight in the face when he made the remark. When, after a few weeks, Kenneth proposed marriage to Jessie, his offer was--refused. Why? Truth to tell, Jessie loved him, but she said to herself, "Now he is rich and I am poor, it cannot be." I do not know whether this was a pardonable pride in Jessie or not. Perhaps it was. Then came an evening when Kenneth, Archie, and Jessie were strolling together on the banks of the loch. It was to be the last night in Scotland of the two American farmers, as they called themselves, and she could not refuse to go with them to see the sun set behind the mountains. Kenneth felt very sad, and spoke but little, Jessie hardly at all; in fact, she felt that it would not take much to make her cry. Archie was still a student of natural history, and a new species of fern caught his eye. He must climb the fence, must commit a trespass even to find it, and his companions strolled on. It was hardly an evening calculated to inspire hope or joy. A breeze roughened the lake, and went moaning through the almost leafless trees; the fields were bare or ploughed, the hedgerows looked sickly, and the brackens--so lovely in summer--were brown or broken down or bent. Still, the robin sang in the woods. That was something. Kenneth and Jessie leant against a stile to wait for Archie; but that fern required a deal of examination. "Archie seems in no hurry," said Jessie, looking back. "He has found a flower of some kind, I suppose," replied Kenneth. "There are few flowers in November," she said, quickly.