"You have come," she said unsteadily; "you have come. And you know ... my husband ... is dead?" "Rumours had reached me," he answered coldly. "When did he die?" "It was in the spring, five months since. He was bitten by a dog, and he died ... raving mad." "Bitten by a dog?" he queried. "Do you not remember? The dog you brought with you bit him. He never recovered. And ... and he died mad." "It was my dog that bit him? And he died mad in consequence of that bite? I do not understand. My dog is alive and well; he was never mad." Her eyes fell. What need to plead further! She knew now too well that his love for her was indeed dead and buried. Had a spark of it yet lived in his heart, suspicion could have found no place. Gone now was all pride, all control; at his feet she threw herself, clasping her knees. "Have you no pity--no pity? He is dead, I tell you. I always cared only for you." "Good God!" he cried hoarsely, and pushed her from him; and the horror in his eyes smote her as his bitterest words could not have done. Alone once more in the room, she lay face downwards on the floor, and the echo of his footfall on the stair beat into her brain like the stroke of doom. Alone till the end of her days she lived a friendless, wretched woman, eating out her heart with the canker of "the might have been." THE GHOST OF PERCIVAL REED When we look back on the past history of the Border, we might almost think that St. Andrew and St. George, who are supposed to keep watch and ward over North and South Britain, had overlooked that hilly stretch of country that lies between the Solway and the Tyne, leaving the heathen god Mars to work his turbulent will with it. From the days of the Roman Wall it was always a tourney-ground, and in the long years when English and Scots warred against each other, scarcely one day in any year went past without the spilling of blood on one or other of its hills or moors. Not only did the Borderers fight against those of other nations. Constantly they fought amongst themselves. A quick-tempered, revengeful lot were the men of those Border clans. On the Northumberland side the quarrels were as frequent as they were amongst those hot-headed Scots--Kers and Scotts, Elliots and Turnbulls and Croziers.