“I have borrowed Ogilvie’s.  Stuart has none.”

“I will get one for him.”

By and by they went upstairs to their respective rooms, and Macleod was left alone, that is to say, he was scarcely aware of the presence of the man who was opening his portmanteau and putting out his things.  He lay back in the low easy-chair, and stared absently into the blazing fire.  This was a beautiful but a lonely house.  There were many strangers in it.  But if she had been one of the people below—­if he could at this moment look forward to meeting her at dinner—­if there was a chance of his sitting beside her and listening to the low and sweet voice—­with what an eager joy he would have waited for the sound of the bell!  As it was, his heart was in London.  He had no sort of interest in this big house, or in the strangers whom he had met, or in the proceedings of the morrow, about which all the men were talking.  It was a lonely house.

He was aroused by a tapping at the door.

“Come in,” he said, and Major Stuart entered, blooming and roseate over his display of white linen.

“Good gracious!” said he, “aren’t you dressed yet?  It wants but ten minutes to dinner-time.  What have you been doing?”

Macleod jumped up with some shamefacedness, and began to array himself quickly.

“Macleod,” said the major, subsiding into the big armchair very carefully so as not to crease his shining shirt-front, “I must give you another piece of advice.  It is serious.  I have heard again and again that when a man thinks only of one thing—­when he keeps brooding over it day and night—­he is bound to become mad.  They call it monomania.  You are becoming a monomaniac.”

“Yes, I think I am,” Macleod said, laughing; “but it is a very pleasant sort of monomania, and I am not anxious to become sane.  But you really must not be hard on me, Stuart.  You know that this is rather an important thing that has happened to me; and it wants a good deal of thinking over.”

“Bah!” the major cried, “why take it so much au grand serieux? A girl likes you; says she’ll marry you; probably, if she continues in the same mind, she will.  Consider your self a lucky dog; and don’t break your heart if an accident occurs.  Hope for the best—­that you and she mayn’t quarrel, and that she mayn’t prove a sigher.  Now what do you think of this house?  I consider it an uncommon good dodge to put each person’s name outside his bedroom door; there can’t be any confounded mistakes—­and women squealing—­if you come up late at night.  Why, Macleod, you don’t mean that this affair has destroyed all your interest in the shooting?  Man, I have been down to the gun-room with your friend Beauregard; have seen the head-keeper; got a gun that suits me firstrate—­a trifle long in the stock, perhaps, but no matter.  You won’t tip any more than the head-keeper, eh?  And the fellow who carries your cartridge-bag?  I do think it uncommonly civil of a man not only to ask you to go shooting, but to find you in guns and cartridges; don’t you?”