"Your nervous system will break down, and you will begin to have a conscience. That is a sure sign, in either a man or a nation. Man, don't I see it all around us now in this way of looking at India and the colonies! We had no conscience--we were in robust health as a nation--when we thrashed the French out of Canada, and seized India, and stole land just wherever we could put our fingers on it all over the globe; but now it is quite different; we are only educating these countries up to self-government; it is all in the interest of morality that we protect them; as soon as they wish to go we will give them our blessing--in short, we have got a conscience, because the national health is feeble and nervous. You look out, or you will get into the same condition. You will begin to ask whether it is right to shoot pretty little birds in order to eat them; you will become a vegetarian; and you will take to goloshes." "Good gracious!" said Macleod, waking up, "what is all this about?" "Rob Roy," observed the major, oracularly, "was a healthy man. I will make you a bet he was not much troubled by chilblains." "Stuart," Macleod cried, "do you want to drive me mad? What on earth are you talking about?" "Anything," the major confessed, frankly, "to rouse you out of your monomania, because I don't want to have my throat cut by a lunatic some night up at Castle Dare." "Castle Dare," repeated Macleod, gloomily. "I think I shall scarcely know the place again; and we have been away about a fortnight!" No sooner had they got down to the landing-step on the Lambeth side of the river than they were descried from the deck of the beautiful little steamer, and a boat was sent ashore for them. Colonel Ross was standing by the tiny gangway to receive them. They got on board, and passed into the glass-surrounded saloon. There certainly was something odd in the notion of being anchored in the middle of the great city--absolutely cut off from it, and enclosed in a miniature floating world, the very sound of it hushed and remote. And, indeed, on this strange morning the big town looked more dream-like than usual as they regarded it from the windows of this saloon--the buildings opal-like in the pale fog, a dusky glitter on the high towers of the Houses of Parliament, and some touches of rose red on the ripples of the yellow water around them. Right over there was the very spot to which he had idly wandered in the clear dawn to have a look at the peacefully flowing stream. How long ago? It seemed to him, looking back, somehow the morning of life--shining clear and beautiful, before any sombre anxieties and joys scarcely less painful had come to cloud the fair sky. He thought of himself at that time with a sort of wonder. He saw himself standing there, glad to watch the pale and glowing glory of the dawn, careless as to what the day might bring forth; and he knew that it was another and an irrecoverable Macleod he was mentally regarding.