"We must get help," he said, gravely. "He must be carried home, and some one must go to Dunmuir. Brian, shall I send to the village for you?" He touched Brian's shoulder as he spoke. The young man rose, and turned his pale face and lack-lustre eyes towards his friend as though he could not understand the question. Donald, repeated it, changing the form a little. "Shall I send for the men?" he said. Brian pressed his hand to his forehead. "The men?" he said, vaguely. "To carry--him to the house." Donald was compassionate, but he was uncomprehending of his friend's apparent want of emotion. He wanted to stir him up to a more definite show of feeling. And to some extent he got his wish. A look of horror came into Brian's eyes; a shudder ran through his frame. "Oh, my God!" he whispered, hoarsely, "is it I who have done this thing?" And then he threw up his hands as though to screen his eyes from the sight of the dead face, staggered a few steps away from the little group, and fell fainting to the ground. It was a sad procession that wound its way through the woodland paths at last, and stopped at the gate of Netherglen. Brian had recovered sufficiently to walk like a mourner behind the covered stretcher on which his brother's form was laid; but he paid little attention to the whispers that were exchanged from time to time between the Grants and the men who carried that melancholy burden to the Luttrells' door. On coming to himself after his swoon he wept like a child for a little time, but had then collected himself and become sadly quiet and calm. Still, he was scarcely awake to anything but the mere fact of his great misfortune, and it was not until the question was actually put to him, that he asked himself whether he could bear to take the news to his mother of the death of her eldest son. Brave as he was, he shrank from the task. "No, no!" he said, looking wildly into Donald's face. "Not I. I am not the one to tell her, that I--that I-----" A great sob burst from him in spite of his usual self-control. Donald Grant turned aside; he did not know how to bear the spectacle of grief such as this. And there were others to be thought of beside Mrs. Luttrell. Miss Vivian--Richard Luttrell's promised wife--was in the house; Donald Grant's own sisters were still waiting for him and Archie. It was impossible to go up to the house without preparing its tenants for the blow that had fallen upon them. Yet who would prepare them? "Here is the doctor," said Archie, turning towards the road. "He will tell them."