"Danvers Carmichael has been here, too. He saw an announcement in The Lounger that I was betrothed to his Grace of Borthwicke, and came by to tell me--as you did yourself," she ended, with a smile, "that the wedding would have to take place without his approval." CHAPTER XXIV THE MURDER Up to this point there are many events which I have drawn with blurred edges by reason of the distance of time; but from this to the end of my story I have the pettiest details of it in mind, many of them with a horrid distinctness. On the evening of the twenty-third the Armstrongs held a dance in honor of the marriage of their daughter Jean with one of John Graham's lads, and a number of young folks were bid to dinner before this festivity should begin, Nancy being one of the number. His Grace of Borthwicke and I were asked for the dancing, a courtesy which he declined by reason of his indisposition, as well as from the fact that he was to start for the Highlands in the morning. Almost immediately after our dinner he excused himself to me, saying that an important letter must be got off on the early post. And his breeding was shown in the fact that he allowed no doubt to remain with me that this was any invented excuse to avoid my society, for he stated to whom the epistle was destined, and the need for its immediate sending, a point of conduct which seemed to me gentlemanly in the extreme. "It's a letter to Pitt," he said. "Ye are great friends now, are ye not?" I asked. "He is the nearest friend I have in all the world," he answered. "We are both rhymesters," he added with a smile. "But this letter is a business one, for I have advices from France for which he is waiting, and they must be sent in cipher because of the trouble brewing in that country. If I do not get the letter off to-night he may not receive it for a fortnight, as he accompanies his Majesty to the country on Friday." "Why not send it by special carrier?" I asked. "It's not important enough for that," he answered lightly, as he crossed to Nancy's writing-room, which had been given to his use as an office during her absence at Allan-lough. Left with the evening on my hands, I set out for Creech's with no weightier purpose than to divert myself and have some merry talk over a bowl of punch; but, as I entered, Blake, who was throwing dice with Dundas at the other end of the room, called to me to ask if I had heard whether Mr. Pitcairn was better. "Is he ill?" I asked in surprise, as it was but the morning before he was at Stair.