Summer passed away, winter and spring succeeded, and summer came again, and with it came the wish to see Mary once more. However much I had before doubted the truth of the axiom, that "absence makes the heart grow fonder," I now felt the full force of its truth. My affection for Mary was, day after day, becoming stronger; and, in spite of the dictates of prudence, my determination never to see her again began to falter; and one evening I unconsciously found myself in the yard of the Black Swan. Well, since I had come there at any rate, it would be exceedingly foolish to go away again without speaking to Mary; so I called to the stable boy to put up my horse. The boy knew me, for I had once given him a sixpence for running a message, and he came briskly forward at my first call, no doubt with some indistinct idea of receiving another sixpence at some no very distant date. "Eh! Mr Moir," said the boy, while I was dismounting, in answer to my question, "What news in the village?" "Ye'll no guess what's gaun to happen? Our Mary, the folk say, is gaun to be married!" Our Mary! thought I, can _our_ Mary be _my_ Mary? And, to ascertain whether they were one and the same personage, I inquired of the boy who our Mary was. "Ou!" replied he, "she's just barmaid at the inn here." I started, now that this disclosure had unhinged my doubts; and subduing, as well as I was able, my rising emotion, I boldly asked, who was "the happy man." "They ca' him a captain!" said the boy innocently; "but whether he's a sea captain, an offisher in the army, or a captain o' police, I'm no that sure. At ony rate, he aye gangs aboot in plain claes. He's been staying for a month here, an' he gangs oot but seldom, an' that only in the gloamin." After thanking the boy, and placing the expected silver coin in his hand, I turned the corner of the house in my way towards the entrance, determined, with my own eyes and ears, to ascertain the truth of the boy's statement. The pace at which I was proceeding was so rapid, that, ere I was aware of the vicinity of any one, I came bump against the person of a gentleman, whom, to my surprise, I instantly recognised as the mysterious visitant to the grave of Clara Douglas, and to the spot where her relics were found. He seemed to regard me with a suspicious eye; for he shuffled past without uttering a word. His air was disordered, his step irregular, and his whole appearance was that of a man with whom care, and pain, and sorrow, had long been familiar. Can this be the captain? was the thought which first suggested itself to me. It was a question I could not answer; yet I entered the Black Swan half persuaded that it was.