“James, you are mad, or ill, what you say is just impossible!”

“I am neither mad nor ill.  I will prove it, if you wish.”

At these words every trace of sympathy or feeling vanished from her face; and she said in a low, hoarse whisper,

“You cannot prove it.  I would not believe such a thing possible.”

Then with a pitiless particularity he went over all the events relating to the note, and held it out for her to examine the signature.

“Is that David Cameron’s writing?” he cried; “did you ever see such a weak imitation?  The man is a fool as well as a villain.”

Christine gazed blankly at the witness of her cousin’s guilt, and James, carried away with the wicked impetuosity of his passionate accusations of Donald’s life, did not see the fair face set in white despair and the eyes close wearily, as with a piteous cry she fell prostrate at his feet.

Ah, how short was his triumph!  When he saw the ruin that his words had made he shrieked aloud in his terror and agony.  Help was at hand, and doctors were quickly brought, but she had received a shock from which it seemed impossible to revive her.  David was brought home, and knelt in speechless distress by the side of his insensible child, but no hope lightened the long, terrible night, and when the reaction came in the morning, it came in the form of fever and delirium.

Questioned closely by David, James admitted nothing but that while talking to him about Donald McFarlane she had fallen at his feet, and Donald could only say that he had that evening told her he was going to Edinburgh in two weeks, to study law with his cousin, and that he had asked her to be his wife.

This acknowledgement bound David and Donald in a closer communion of sorrow.  James and his sufferings were scarcely noticed.  Yet, probably of all that unhappy company, he suffered the most.  He loved Christine with a far deeper affection than Donald had ever dreamed of.  He would have given his life for hers, and yet he had, perhaps, been her murderer.  How he hated Donald in those days!  What love and remorse tortured him!  And what availed it that he had bought the power to ruin the man he hated?  He was afraid to use it.  If Christine lived, and he did use it, she would never forgive him; if she died, he would be her murderer.

But the business of life cannot be delayed for its sorrows.  David must wait in his shop, and James must be at the bank; and in two weeks Donald had to leave for Edinburgh, though Christine was lying in a silent, broken-hearted apathy, so close to the very shoal of Time that none dared say, “She will live another day.”

How James despised Donald for leaving her at all; he desired nothing beyond the permission to sit by her side, and watch and aid the slow struggle of life back from the shores and shades of death.

It was almost the end of summer before she was able to resume her place in the household, but long before that she had asked to see James.  The interview took place one Sabbath afternoon while David was at church.  Christine had been lifted to a couch, but she was unable to move, and even speech was exhausting and difficult to her.  James knelt down by her side, and, weeping bitterly, said,