you get the right sort. Come now, Macleod, pull yourself together; Perhaps I have just as hard an opinion of her conduct towards you as you have yourself. But you know what Tommy Moore, or some fellow like that says--'Though she be not fair to me, what the devil care I how fair she be?' And if I were you, I would have a drop of brandy--but not half a tumblerful." But neither Lieutenant Ogilvie's pert common-sense, nor his apt and accurate quotation, nor the proffered brandy, seemed to alter much the mood of this haggard-faced man. He rose. "I think I am going now," said he, in a low voice. "You won't take it unkindly, Ogilvie, that I don't stop to talk with you: it is a strange story you have told me--I want time to think over it. Good-by!" "The fact is, Macleod," Ogilvie stammered, as he regarded his friend's face, "I don't like to leave you. Won't you stay and dine with our fellows? or shall I see if I can run up to London with you?" "No, thank you, Ogilvie," said he. "And have you any message for the mother and Janet?" "Oh, I hope you will remember me most kindly to them. At least, I will go to the station with you, Macleod." "Thank you, Ogilvie; but I would rather go alone. Good-by, now." He shook hands with his friend, in an absent sort of way, and left. But while yet his hand was on the door, he turned and said,-- "Oh, do you remember my gun that has the shot barrel and the rifle barrel?" "Yes, certainly." "And would you like to have that, Ogilvie?--we sometimes had it when we were out together." "Do you think I would take your gun from you, Macleod?" said the other. "And you will soon have plenty of use for it now." "Good-by, then, Ogilvie," said he, and he left, and went out into the world of rain, and lowering skies, and darkening moors. And when he went back to Dare it was a wet day also; but he was very cheerful; and he had a friendly word for all whom he met; and he told the mother and Janet that he had got home at last, and meant to go no more a-roving. But that evening, after dinner, when Donald began to play the Lament for the memory of the five sons of Dare, Macleod gave a sort of stifled cry, and there were tears running down his cheeks--which was a strange thing for a man; and he rose and left the hall, just as a woman would have done. And his mother sat there, cold, and pale, and trembling; but the gentle cousin Janet called out, with a piteous trouble in her eyes,-- "Oh, auntie, have you seen the look on our Keith's face, ever since he came ashore to-day?" "I know it, Janet," said she. "I have seen it. That woman has broken his heart; and he is the last of my six brave lads!" They could not speak any more now; for Donald had come up the hall; and he was playing the wild, sad wail of the _Cumhadh-na-Cloinne_. CHAPTER XLI. A LAST HOPE.