"Give ten years of nonsense. How generous people are at making gifts of the impossible! But look here, Duncan Leslie, I'll have you on your knees for this when we have found out the mystery; and what looks so black and blind is as simple as A B C. Trash! bolt with some French adventurer? Our Louie! Rubbish, sir! Everything will be proved by and by. She couldn't do it. Loves her poor old father too well. There, once more take my advice, lie down there and have a nap, and set your brain to work in the sunshine, not in the dark." "No." "Going?" "Yes, I am going. Good-night, sir." "Good-night, you great stupid, obstinate, thick-headed Scotchman," growled Uncle Luke, as he let him out, and stood listening to his retiring steps. "I hope you'll slip over the cliff and half kill yourself. There's something about Duncan Leslie that I like after all," he muttered, as he went back to the dining-room, and after a few minutes' thought, went softly up to his brother's chamber, to find him sleeping heavily from the effect of the sedative given by the doctor. Uncle Luke stole out quietly, shook his fist at his sister's door, and then went below to sit for a while studying Louise's letter, before lying down to think, and dropping off to sleep with the comforting self-assurance that all would come right in the end. Meanwhile Duncan Leslie had gone down the steep descent, and made his way to the foot of the cliff-path, up which, with brain and heart throbbing painfully, he slowly tramped. The night was dull and cold, and as he ascended toward Luke Vine's rough cottage, he thought of how often he had met Louise on her way up there to her uncle's; and how he had often remained at a distance watching from his own place up at the mine the graceful form in its simple attire, and the sweet, earnest face, whose eyes used once to meet his so kindly, and with so trusting a look. "Sleep on it!" he said, as he recalled the old man's words. "No sleep will ever make me think differently. I must have been mad--I must have been mad." He had reached the old man's cottage, and almost unconsciously stopped and seated himself on the rough block of granite which was Uncle Luke's favourite spot when the sun shone. Before him lay the sea spreading out deep and black, and as impenetrable as to its mysteries as the blank future he sought to fathom; and as he looked ahead, the sea, the sky, the future all seemed to grow more black.