him and done everything they knew to restore the vital heat--but without avail. “How did it happen?” the doctor said--but this no man could tell. They gathered together in an excited yet awestricken group to consult together, to put their different guesses together, to collect what indications might be found. Duncan thought that the collar of the coat was torn as if some one had grasped the poor young man “by the scruff of the neck.” There was a bruise on his throat which might have come from the hand thus inserted--but his face had several bruises upon it from contact with the rocks, and his clothes had been so torn and cut up that they afforded little assistance in solving the problem. To send for some member of his family, and to make the sheriff aware of all the circumstances was evidently the only thing to do. Jeanie had fled without a word, without a look behind her, when her lover’s arm loosened from her waist, and her father’s hoarse and angry voice broke in upon the scene. No thought of any tragedy to follow was in Jeanie’s mind. She had never seen her father take any violent action; his voice, his frowns, had always been enough, there had been no need for more. She thought of an angry altercation, a command to come near the house no more, so far as she thought at all. But she scarcely did think at all. She fled, afraid of her lover, afraid of her father, not sure, to tell the truth, which she feared most--glad that the situation was over, that she could escape by any means. She sped up the wooded bank, out of the shadow of the bare trees about the linn, like a frightened bird--flying, never looking behind. Pausing a moment to take breath before she ran round to the house door, she was thankful to hear no voices in anger, but all fallen into quiet again, nothing but the sound of the linn, louder she thought for the cessation of other sounds; and concluding rapidly in her mind that her father had reserved his anger for her, and let Lord John go--not a just, but according even to Jeanie’s small experience, a sufficiently usual turn of affairs--she went on more quietly to the house, that no hasty rush on her part, or self-disclosure of agitation, might call forth Mary’s remarks or the questions of Marg’ret. But the agitation of the moment was not over for Jeanie. She saw some one approaching the door from the road as she came within sight. It was too late to escape, and she instinctively put up her hand to smooth her hair, and drew a few long breaths to overcome altogether the panting of her heart, that the stranger, whoever he might be, might not perceive how disturbed she was. But when Jeanie had taken a step or two further, her heart suddenly made a leap again, which swept all her precautions away. “Oh!” she cried, with almost a shriek of agitated recognition, “now of all moments in the world---- That he should come now!” “I am afraid,” he said, “I cannot think that cry means any pleasure to see me, though I am so glad to be here.”