she were humiliated in the service she was trying to render him.

"I see ye're no pleased that I should come near ye,” she faltered, "e'en when ye're in sic sair need o' friends as ye are enoo; but I winna fash ye lang."

"I wasna expecting ye," he answered in a low husky voice. "No"-(with a tone of sad bitterness)-"ye couldna think weel'eneuch o' me to fancy that I would care what came o' ye. Ye thought that I would just leave ye to whatever might happen without trying to help ye. Maybe I should hae done that, but I couldna. I dinna care what ye may think o' me, but I couldna sit idle at hame and ken ye needed help without trying to gie it ye."

"I'm thankfu' to ye.".

"I dinna seek your thanks, I dinna need them. Wi' Heaven's will I shall do what a wife should do for ye in your trouble; but when that's by, ye'll find that I can keep awa' frae ye-aye, as dourly as ye would keep awa' frae me.'

He passed his hand absently over his brow, and his lips trembled. It was a wretched sight, this strong man weak and helpless as a child.

"I'm thankfu' to ye," he said again feebly.

And at that all her bitterness vanished, leaving only the fond sympathetic woman. She advanced to him and laid her hand on his arm. He trembled at her touch, but he made no effort to thrust her from him, as she had half feared he would do.

“I hae just ae question to speir," she said softly; “and after that I'll no fash ye ony mair wi' my presence."

"I'm listening."

"Did ye meet Jeamie Falcon after ye left me in Askaig house? Did ye see him again, or hear him, or come near him in ony way?"

She watched him with terrible eagerness as she pronounced

the words.

The question seemed to rouse him from his lethargy. He rose to his height, erect and firm as he had been before this

calamity. He shook her hand from his arm and his eyes flashed angrily.

"You too doubt me!" he exclaimed hoarsely; "but what else could I expect? you wha never cared for me and loved him,—what could ye do but be the first to think me guilty ?"

“Oh man, dinna speak thae cruel fause words to me the noo; but answer me-answer me frae your heart truly as though ye was at the Judgment-seat, and gie me strength to save ye."

He regarded her fixedly for an instant, and then answered with a steady voice, only avoiding Falcon's name—

"I never saw him, or heard him, or came near him to my knowledge, after I left him and you in Askaig house."

"God be thanked-Oh, God be thanked for that!" she cried dropping on her knees with clasped hands upraised and tears of grateful joy streaming down her cheeks.

He turned his back upon her, for he could not look upon that face so bright with faith in him without a sharp, twingé of remorse for all he had done to cloud it. She whom he had so readily doubted, whose truth he had so doggedly refused to credit; she whom he had spurned from him, accepted his single word against all the evidence in the world. That was the sharpest sting of all, to feel that she could trust him so much when he had shown so little trust in her.

She misinterpreted his movement; she thought he was unrelenting, still believed her guilt and wished her gone. But she did not care for that now. The lingering shadow which had lurked in her mind, and against which she had striven so hard to close her eyes, was dispelled, as a stream of light chases the darkness from a room when the shutters are thrown open.

She rose to her feet, strong and resolute to save him, indifferent whether he doubted or believed her, loved or scorned her. It was no part of her calculation that she should win him back to her by rescuing him from his present danger. She would have shrunk with loathing from the thought if it had occurred to her. It was the pure motive of a generous

nature to serve one to whom she was grateful for much kindness in spite of all his latter cruelty. And as resolute as she was to save him, just as resolute was she that, the task accomplished, she would leave him to follow his own course in life.

"Dinna be dooncast," she said in a low hopeful voice, and it had never sounded so sweetly as now; "ye shaʼna die the death o' shame; Heaven winna let it be, and there are thae wha'll rest neither day nor nicht till a' that looks sae black against ye is made clear. Tak' courage in thinking o' that."

"Jeanie, Jeanie," he cried with broken voice, "ye make my heart ache wi' the thocht o' the wrang I hae done ye. Oh, I hae been mad-mad, and God help me. I only see it noo when it's maybe ower late-Jeanie !"

He called her wildly, but she had gone before he had turned round; gone the moment she had finished speaking, without having heard that outburst which would have comforted her So. There was nothing but the closed door to answer him; and somehow the fancy came and chilled him that his own hand had closed and barred the door between himself and his happiness.

But her sweet words were echoing in his brain, wooing back the desire to live, and with it were coming courage and hope. He began to pace the floor thoughtfully, agitatedly, and the sunshine seemed to have penetrated the chamber since she had been there.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE EVIDENCE.

"Let come what will, I'll ne'er believe
But truth will get the better o't:

The mirkest hour ay brings reprieve

The doubt o' truth's the traitor o't."-The Cateran.

JEANIE, with rapid steps, proceeded to the house of the lawyer, Peter Carnegie. She required guidance, and he was the man

from whom to seek it. She was not going to waste precious time by any blundering which her ignorance of the work she had undertaken might cause. She would seek help from whomsoever and wherever it might be obtained. She had promised to prove Robin's innocence, and she meant to do it, although she had not at present any clue to the riddle she was determined to solve. Her prompt decisive steps indicated that she brought strength and courage to the task.

Mr. Carnegie was not at home, but the servant-girl who admitted her said he was only over at the inn, and would be back soon. Jeanie was ushered into the office, where a boy was busy copying some documents, and there she waited. The boy did not speak, but he looked a great deal at the client, and indeed gave her almost as much attention in that way as he gave his work.

The lawyer came at last, much to Jeanie's relief, for her patience was limited by her excited desire to be doing something, and sitting silently there did not appear to be furthering her business much.

Mr. Carnegie had a bundle of papers in his hand, and he wore an expression of much pre-occupation. When he perceived who was waiting for him, he saluted her gravely, and before permitting her to speak he despatched his boy on some errand.

"That'll keep the callan' out o' the road, Mrs. Gray, while we hae a crack-he's got the langest lugs and the glibbest tongue of any laddie of his ain age in the town. He'll make a capital lawyer if he doesna fa' into some mischief or he's auld enough. I suppose ye come about your guidman? Aye, it's a sad business, a sad business."

"But we must bring him through't, Mr. Carnegie, for he's innocent.'

"We!" raising his eyebrows and pulling his vest straight on his little stout body. "I'll do everything in my power for him, Mrs. Gray, but the affair looks bad at present, I'm compelled to admit."

"That doesna matter, sir, we maun save him."

"We! Are you prepared to suggest onything that may throw a new light on the subject then ?"

"I canna say yet; but I want to ken a' the particulars o' the evidence they hae arrested him on."

She spoke with so much firmness that Mr. Carnegie, who was at first a little huffed by her apparent desire to relieve him of some of his responsibility without even asking permission, at once complied with her request. That was saying a great deal for the impression she had made on him; for although he was a sociable sensible little man in other respects, he was apt to take prejudices so strongly that they sometimes interfered with his duty; and on no subject was he so ready to become prejudiced as on anything which ruffled the sense of his own importance.

"I hae been over at the inn all the morning, for of course being Cairnieford's regular agent I took the matter in hand the moment I heard about it. I hae got, partly from the fiscal himsel❜—he and I are capital friends ye ken—and chiefly frae the folk he examined, a summary of all the evidence he has before him, except what you told him, and that of course ye'll let me ken at once with ony additions that may occur to you.

He unfolded the papers he had brought in with him, arranged them in their proper order according to the figures on each, and proceeded

“The first thing I have here is the evidence of the finding and identification of the body, by John Dunbar the younger, in the service of his father at Boghaugh, Thomas Mackie, grieve at Cairnieford, and George Barr and David Hogg, ploughmen at Cairnieford aforesaid"

"I ken a' about the finding o' the body, sir; what I want to ken is how they connect my guidman wi't ?" she interrupted. Mr. Carnegie was a little put out by this check. He cleared his throat, however, and resumed—

"I must place the business before ye in due order, Mrs. Gray, or you will never see it clearly; but I'll pass over anything you may be already acquainted with, if you'll just let me ken when I touch on it. Well, when the body was found, it