She obeyed with a sigh, and gave him such a description as he could not mistake. He asked where she lived, but the girl had never met her anywhere but in the street, she said. Questioning her very carefully as to Caley’s behaviour to her, Malcolm was convinced that she had a hand in the affair. Indeed, she had happily more to do with it than even Mrs Catanach knew, for she had traversed her treatment to the advantage of Malcolm. The mid-wife had meant the potion to work slowly, but the lady’s-maid had added to the pretended philtre a certain ingredient in whose efficacy she had reason to trust; and the combination, while it wrought more rapidly, had yet apparently set up a counteraction favourable to the efforts of the struggling vitality which it stung to an agonised resistance. But Malcolm’s strength was now exhausted. He turned faint, and the girl had the sense to run to the kitchen and get him some soup. As he took it, her demeanour and regards made him anxious, uncomfortable, embarrassed. It is to any true man a hateful thing to repel a woman --it is such a reflection upon her. “I’ve told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it’s gospel truth I’ve told you,” said the girl, after a long pause.--It was a relief when first she spoke, but the comfort vanished as she went on, and with slow, perhaps unconscious movements approached him.--“I would have died for you, and here that devil of a woman has been making me kill you! Oh, how I hate her! Now you will never love me a bit---not one tiny little bit for ever and ever!” There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that touched Malcolm deeply. “I am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine,” he said. “You have saved me from my worst enemy. Do not tell any other what you have told me, or let anyone know that we have talked together. The day will come when I shall be able to show you my gratitude.” Something in his tone struck her, even through the folds of her passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a moment the tide ebbed. Then came a rush that overmastered her. She flung her hands above her head, and cried, “That means you will do anything but love me!” “I cannot love you as you mean,” said Malcolm. “I promise to be your friend, but more is out of my power.” A fierce light came into the girl’s eyes. But that instant a terrible cry, such as Malcolm had never heard, but which he knew must be Kelpie’s, rang through the air, followed by the shouts of men, the tones of fierce execration, and the clash and clang of hoofs. “Good God!” he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, sprang from the bed, and ran to the window outside his door.