Fred obeyed the old woman sulkily and with the greatest reluctance. He would not have done so at all had not Susie seen her. But he could not show to Susie that he had any reluctance to speak to old Janet, whom the younger members of the family had always held by against all the objections of the younger servants. He went mechanically after her, with a strong return of that resentment which he had felt against his father for the recommendation to consult her. It was grievous to be made to think of that at such a moment, when his father had become more sacred to him than ever, in face of the desecrating change that was about to take place, the injury to that beloved memory. It was the only grievance Fred had against his father. He tried to force it from his mind, to have patience with the old woman as he followed her. She belonged to _him_. She had been faithful to him all his life. Perhaps she wanted to make sure that she should be provided for when his mother left the place, when Yalton was in his possession alone. Oh, certainly she should be provided for, till her last hour! The only one that was faithful to _him_. Neither friend nor wife had been faithful to him, but his old nurse was faithful. She was sacred to his son for his sake. Fred made his heart soft with these thoughts; he overcame his own opposition almost altogether, partly with the sentiment of the nurse’s faithfulness, partly with his resentment against the others; and he was ready when he found himself in Janet’s room, face to face with her in the light of her lamp, to offer her any assurance of his protection and certainty she might require as to her living and her home. Janet, however, put no question to him on any such score. She shut the door and came up close to him in the lamp-light. “Mr. Fred,” she said, “you maun take courage, my bonnie man. There are dreadful things to be said to you to-night. Just summon all your strength and read that.” Fred started at the sight of the paper she put before his eyes. “I see,” he said, “it is my father’s writing. But you need not show me any letter. He told me himself, the day before he died----” “Oh, laddie, laddie! take it and read it before I go out o’ my senses,” Janet cried. He took the paper into his hands. His father’s handwriting, there could be no doubt; but no suspicion of the truth was in Fred’s mind. He glanced over it, and thought to himself that he had gone out of his senses, as Janet said, or had lost himself in some incoherent dream. “My wife’s marriage must be stopped.” What did that mean? A man who died two years ago, how could he write about an event of to-day? Was he going mad? Was he in a dream? Was it some delusion which she had put by witchcraft before his eyes? “My wife’s marriage must be stopped.” “How could he know?” he asked with blanched lips. “How could he tell there would be a marriage?” He turned upon her a face blank of all expression, pale, in a horror of enlightenment about to come.