He did not stay to say more, or hear Adam's answer.

He went to the doctor, and from him learned that Jeanie was in a state of low fever, brought on by excessive exertion of body and anxiety of mind. The excitement had sustained her whilst there was work to do; but the work completed, her husband safe, the collapse followed.

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What she has gone through," said the doctor finally, "would have killed many a woman in her condition, and I advise you to be careful to do nothing that may agitate her."

Robin went away. He knew now that unexplained other reason for her truth to him at which she had hinted. He was welcomed home by the farm folk with hearty rejoicing; but the home was bleak and cheerless without her. He could not rest, he could not live in it without her, and he rose with a passionate moan to quit the place.

Then he checked himself; became calmer, and with bowed head and sad face set himself to work and wait, hoping. Day after day he was at the cottage, always to receive the same dry answer from Adam

"My dochter's doing brawly, but she's no fit to see onybody."

Robin, bearing in mind the doctor's warning, would not press his request yet awhile. He watched and waited.

CHAPTER LIII.

SETTLING DAY.

"The seas may row, the winds may blow,

And swathe me round wi' danger;

My native land I must forego,

And roam a lonely stranger."-From the Gaelic.

CARRACH'S conduct did not alter in the jail, except so far as the shade of difference which might be distinguished between sullen silence and dull indifference. The fiscal tried every means in his power to obtain a statement from him of some sort. But the Highlander doggedly refused to say anything, even in his own defence.

At length the fiscal, hoping to rouse him, told him that there was important evidence against him.

"Was there?" said Carrach, rolling his eyes in the slow ox-like manner peculiar to him; “oich, but she was sorry for that, and wha was the evidence ?"

"Then what'll you want me to told you again for ? "

"For your own sake and to get at the truth as nearly as possible."

At that Carrach gave a species of grunt which might have been intended for a laugh or an oath, but which certainly intimated that he did not take much interest in the pursuit of truth. He picked up a straw, from the heap which formed his couch, put it in his mouth and began deliberately to chew it. After a pause

"Where was the Laird? he inquired.

"Not far away."

"Where was that?

"In the second cell from this; a prisoner like yourself" (surely that will make him speak out, the fiscal thought).

But the skipper coolly chewed the straw and rolled his eyes without displaying the least concern in tone or manner, whilst he said

"In shail-ochone, but that was a fall doon. Well, you'll shust go to him. He'll told you what you'll want to know. I'll no spoke a word-pe-tam."

He adhered to that resolution, and with stolid placidity awaited the turn of events.

The Laird's conduct was that of abject terror. His limbs seemed to be paralysed, so that when he was laid on the straw heap which served as bed in the cell, he lay there for several days apparently incapable of rising.

He started wildly whenever any of the warders entered the cell, and shook as with the ague so long as he remained near him. He whined piteonsly at times, lamenting in a childish,

helpless manner the misfortune that had befallen him. At other times he would shriek out with hysterical vehemence that he was innocent, and that he would have everybody hanged or transported at least for the slander which had brought him to this pass.

On several occasions during the night he had started, apparently from sleep, uttering wild shrieks of terror which echoed along the stone corridors of the prison, until one of the turnkeys entered his cell with a light. Then his cries subsided into a piteous whine, and he implored the man to leave the light with him-the darkness was so horrible. It was clear that his reason had been affected by the discovery of his knavery and the dread of its consequences.

His frenzy reached a climax when he was visited by the sheriff-depute and the fiscal for the purpose of taking his deposition.

Mr. Smart entered first, and at sight of him the Laird started to a sitting posture, drawing his knees up to his chin almost, and clutching the straw under him with the spasmodic grip of a drowning man, whilst his body quivered and writhed as with intense physical pain. His pale ferrety eyes blinked, and his lips moved as if he were trying to speak; but he had no command over his tongue.

His terror was pitiable. The fiscal stepped over to him and held an open snuff-box towards him. The blinking eyes darted from the fiscal's face to the box, and back; a hideous girn twisted his features, and he uttered a shrill sort of laugh that grated like a harsh false note on the ear. His hand, shaking violently, dipped into the box, and as he filled his nostrils with the tobacco he obtained speech

"Od, it's extraordinar'!"-(a high sharp tone and the girn still twisting his features)—" ye come an' offer me the prime consolation o' my miserable existence, and me thought ye was coming to take me awa' to the wuddie-no, I dinna mean that "—(checking himself with fierce shrillness)—“ ye couldna do that-ye haena the power to do it. I'm wrangfully accused. I'm a martyred man, but I'll hae the law, sir.

I'll hae ye put through your facings to a tune ye dinna bargain for. I'll hae-wha's yon?

His fit of passion disappeared as his eyes blinked at the sheriff, and all his shivering fear returned.

"Take another pinch, Laird," said the fiscal quietly, "it'll do ye guid."

"Wha's yon?" (taking a pinch, or rather a handful, half of which was scattered over his breast on the way to his nostrils).

"A friend, come to hear what information you can give us about this extraordinary business.”

"I hae nae information to give, sir, I ken naething about it

The fiscal interrupted this new burst of vehemence.

"I should tell you, Laird, that the only chance I see for yoursel' is in making a clean breast of it and telling us everything."

The wretched prisoner's eyes blinked suspiciously from one to the other of his visitors as if he were eager to discover how far he might trust them, and how he might speak most to his own advantage. Weak and helpless as he was, he clung to life with the desperate tenacity of one whose doom meets him face to face.

"There is no other chance for you, Laird," added the fiscal quietly.

He snatched at the chance with feverish anxiety.

66 Do you think that? do you really think that ? " "I'm sure of it."

"And-and if I tell ye-that is, if I had onything to tell ye and would tell ye—will it gie me a chance to win out o' this?"

"Surely, surely."

The prospect sufficed; he was ready to confess anything that might help to save himself; he did not care who suffered so long as he might escape.

He bore testimony to the fidelity of what he had written as Carrach's confession. Except in regard to the opening state

ment as to the circumstances under which it had been written, it was correct in every particular. The events it recorded had been impressed on his mind with a too painful distinctness by his own dread of being implicated in the crime for him to have made an error in any item. He supplied the necessary links to establish the identity of James Falcon as the son of the late Hugh Sutherland, and removed every obstacle to his taking possession of the estate.

When he had finished he seemed to be exhausted by his exertions, but he pleaded piteously for mercy.

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They winna hang me, fiscal," he cried, "it wasna me that did it. I'm an innocent man; they wouldna hang a poor creature like me."

"You are not like to die on the gallows," said the fiscal, to soothe him as he retired with the sheriff.

The Laird shrieked with ecstasy; then suddenly became silent and cunningly observant of all that passed around him, as if already calculating how he might turn it to future

account.

He was quieter that afternoon than he had been since he had been imprisoned. He was quieter, too, during the night than he had been previously. The warders heard him groan two or three times; but they heard none of the wild frenzied shrieks with which he had formerly roused the echoes of the silent prison. The change was remarkable as well as a relief. Early in the morning, when the warder entered his cell, he found the Laird quiet enough-he was dead. His body was twisted as if he had died in acute pain, and his eyes glared wider than they had ever done in life. He looked as if death had taken him by surprise. It was the miserable end of a miserable career.

Carrach was tried at the next circuit court. There were two charges against him; first, the murder of Wattie Todd; and second, the wilful burning of the brig called the Colin, to the danger of human life and the defrauding of the underwriters. In this latter case the second in the indictment,