With a strange smile of satisfaction he touched the inner breast pocket of his long black vest, for in that pocket there lay a letter from Donald which was all his own. It had come to him by the same mail which brought Marion's, but some curious Scotch twist in his nature prompted him to conceal the fact. The root of this secrecy was undoubtedly selfishness. He did not want anyone else to see, or touch, or handle it--it was all his own, as long as it lay unspoken of in his breast wallet. There were things in it he could not bear to discuss--things that appeared to actually deny all the results he had declared would be the natural and certain consequences of Donald's disobedience and irreligious tendencies. So he kept the letter in his breast and said nothing about it, and he went to Blackie's bookshop and brought home in his hand a volume by Mills with which he passed the long evening. Now and then he vouchsafed a few remarks on passing events, but upon the whole he had reason to congratulate himself upon his reticence and its success. Nevertheless, it had been less successful than he imagined, for, after he had retired with Mr. Mills to the solitude of his study, Marion said, with a sigh, "He never named Donald, Aunt;" and Mrs. Caird answered sharply, "I am thinking, Marion, he knows all about Donald. He has had a letter his own self. The man is far too curious to have kept whist if he had not known what we were meaning by Donald's good fortune. No doubt Donald wrote to him. I would hardly believe your father if he said different." After this event the gloomy winter of snow and rain and thick fog settled over the busy city, and people with firm-set lips and gloomy faces went doggedly about their business and tried not to mind the weather. But Dr. Macrae was acutely sensible to atmospheric conditions, and the nearly constant gloom and drizzle was but the outward sign of his mental and spiritual darkness and doubt. Day followed day in a monotonous despairing search for what he could not find, and life lost all its savor and searching all its hope and zest. Finally his health began to suffer. He found out what it meant to be nervous and inadequate for duty. He became unreasonable or dourly despondent, and every change was marked by moods and tempers that affected the whole household. For the mind has malignant contagious diseases, as well as the body, and the black silent sulk or the fretful complaining in the study passed readily into every room of the gloomy household.