He approached one of the tall windows and looked out upon the night, and on the well-known scene, with all its familiar sights and sounds, with the moonlight streaming over steeple, tower, and dome--St. Giles's crown--the castle on its rock, so high in air that its lights seemed to mingle with the stars, and from it came the sound of the Cameronian drums, awaking the echoes of turret and battery--the drums he would soon be following again; but the heavy sigh of supreme gratitude that escaped him reminded him by a pang of the wound in his chest, and he reeled giddily. 'I would that they were come,' he muttered. 'I knew not till now that I was still so weak,' he added, as he looked at his wasted hands. The shadow or outline of a man's figure standing in the broad iron balcony without the window now fell suddenly on a window-blind. Cecil drew it up--threw open the sash abruptly, and found himself face to face with--Hew--Hew watching him! He seemed shabby in dress and dissipated--his hair and moustache untrimmed; his eyes were bleary, his nose pimply, and his whole air and aspect were those of a sorely broken-down tippler. Cecil, in utter repugnance, recoiled a pace, and an ugly expression flashed in the shifty and bilious-like eyes of Hew. 'You, here!' exclaimed Cecil. 'Yes--and I saw your arrival.' 'Are you living in this hotel, Hew?' 'Well--I am, in a manner of way,' he replied, sulkily: 'I am the billiard-marker!' 'The billiard-marker? Have you fallen so far?' 'Yes,' he replied, with a fierce grimace. 'You did me an infamous and awful injury, Hew, as your own confession has shown; but,' added Cecil, in the generosity of his nature and under the impulses of the time, 'I forgive it all now.' 'Thank you--how good!' sneered the other. 'Let us forget our feud--your feud, rather; but never let me look upon your face again.' 'Only children and fools, they say, forget.' 'And what have you to remember, pray?' 'All that you have come between, and me.' 'I have only come to my own.' 'Curse you!' exclaimed Hew, hoarsely and bitterly. 'You are a rancorous fellow--begone instantly!' replied Cecil, as he closed the window; and, feeling somewhat exhausted by the emotions this most unexpected interview stirred within him, he threw himself upon a sofa to await the return of Fotheringhame with those who were to accompany him, and after a time he forgot all about Hew and his close vicinity. Weary and weak, a drowsiness encouraged by the warmth of the room stole over him, and, in spite of his efforts to keep awake, he fell into a drowsy state between sleeping and waking; but his mind was full of Mary, who would soon be with him--the real and imaginary so blended in his vision, but indistinctly, with that vacuity which makes the dreamer sigh when his fancies have become a memory.