’Well,’ he was inwardly saying, as he resumed his walk homeward, ’the dreams that look so fine when one is up among the hills are knocked on the head sure enough when one comes to a town. I’ll have no more to do with these books; nor with the widow Menzies and her friends either. To-morrow morning I’m off to the recruiting-sergeant—that’s the best thing for me now.’ By the time he had got home he was quite resolved upon this. But there was a note lying there on the table for him. ’That woman again,’ he said to himself. ’Katie, lass, I’m afraid you and I must part, but I hope we’ll part good friends.’ And then his eyes grew suddenly startled. He took up the note, staring at the outside, apparently half afraid. And then he opened it and read—but in a kind of wild and breathless bewilderment—these two or three lines, written in rather a shaky hand— ’DEAR RONALD—I wish to see you. Would it trouble you to be at the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Renfield Street to-morrow morning at eleven?—I will not detain you more than a few minutes. Yours sincerely, ’MEENIE DOUGLAS.’ There was not much sleep for him that night. *CHAPTER V.* *A MEETING.* Indeed there was no sleep at all for him that night. He knew not what this summons might mean; and all the assurance and self-confidence of former days was gone now; he was nervous, distracted, easily alarmed; ready to imagine evil things; and conscious that he was in no fit state to present himself before Meenie. And yet he never thought of slinking away. Meenie desired to see him, and that was enough. Always and ever he had been submissive to her slightest wish. And if it were merely to reproach him, to taunt him with his weakness and folly, that she had now sent for him, he would go all the same. He deserved that and more. If only it had been some one else—not Meenie—whose resolute clear eyes he had to meet!