Gray turned upon the consul the same look of gravity that he had worn on the yacht--the same look that the consul even fancied he had seen in Ailsa's eyes. “That's exactly where you're mistaken in her,” he said slowly. “A girl like that gives her word and keeps it. She waits, hopes, accepts what may come--breaks her heart, if you will, but not her word. Come, let's talk of something else. How did he--that man Gow--lose Callender's money?” The consul did not see the Callenders again on his return, and perhaps did not think it necessary to report the meeting. But one morning he was delighted to find an official document from New York upon his desk, asking him to communicate with David Callender of St. Kentigern, and, on proof of his identity, giving him authority to draw the sum of five thousand dollars damages awarded for the loss of certain property on the Skyscraper, at the request of James Gow. Yet it was with mixed sensations that the consul sought the little shop of the optician with this convincing proof of Gow's faithfulness and the indissolubility of Ailsa's engagement. That there was some sad understanding between the girl and Gray he did not doubt, and perhaps it was not strange that he felt a slight partisanship for his friend, whose nature had so strangely changed. Miss Ailsa was not there. Her father explained that her health had required a change, and she was visiting some friends on the river. “I'm thinkin' that the atmosphere is not so pure here. It is deficient in ozone. I noticed it myself in the early morning. No! it was not the confinement of the shop, for she never cared to go out.” He received the announcement of his good fortune with unshaken calm and great practical consideration of detail. He would guarantee his identity to the consul. As for James Gow, it was no more than fair; and what he had expected of him. As to its being an equivalent of his loss, he could not tell until the facts were before him. “Miss Ailsa,” suggested the consul venturously, “will be pleased to hear again from her old friend, and know that he is succeeding.” “I'm not so sure that ye could call it 'succeeding,'” returned the old man, carefully wiping the glasses of a pair of spectacles that he held critically to the light, “when ye consider that, saying nothing of the waste of valuable time, it only puts James Gow back where he was when he went away.” “But any man who has had the pleasure of knowing Mr. and Miss Callender would be glad to be on that footing,” said the consul, with polite significance. “I'm not agreeing with you there,” said Mr. Callender quietly; “and I'm observing in ye of late a tendency to combine business wi' compleement. But it was kind of ye to call; and I'll be sending ye the authorization.”