* * * * *

And so, in a paroxysm of wild terror and pain, he awoke again; and behold, the ghastly white daylight was in the room—­the cold glare of a day he would fain have never seen!  It was all in a sort of dream that this haggard-faced man dressed, and drank a cup of tea, and got outside into the rain.  The rain, and the noise of the cabs, and the gloom of London skies; these harsh and commonplace things were easier to bear than the dreams of the sick brain.  And then, somehow or other, he got his way down to Aldershot, and sought out Norman Ogilvie.

“Macleod!” Ogilvie cried—­startled beyond measure by his appearance.

“I—­I wanted to shake hands with you, Ogilvie, before I am going,” said this hollow-eyed man, who seemed to have grown old.

Ogilvie hesitated for a second or two; and then he said, vehemently,—­

“Well, Macleod, I am not a sentimental chap—­but—­but—­hang it! it is too bad.  And again and again I have thought of writing to you, as your friend, just within the last week or so; and then I said to myself that tale-bearing never came to any good.  But she won’t darken Mrs. Ross’s door again—­that I know.  Mrs. Ross went straight to her the other day.  There is no nonsense about that woman.  And when she got to understand that the story was true, she let Miss White know that she considered you to be a friend of hers, and that—­well, you know how women give hints—­”

“But I don’t know what you mean, Ogilvie!” he cried, quite bewildered.  “Is it a thing for all the world to know?  What story is it—­when I knew nothing till yesterday?”

“Well, you know now:  I saw by your face a minute ago that she had told you the truth at last,” Ogilvie said.  “Macleod, don’t blame me.  When I heard of her being about to be married, I did not believe the story—­”

Macleod sprang at him like a tiger, and caught his arm with the grip of a vise.

“Her getting married?—­to whom?”

“Why, don’t you know?” Ogilvie said, with his eyes staring.  “Oh yes, you must know.  I see you know!  Why, the look in your face when you came into this room—­”

“Who is the man, Ogilvie?”—­and there was the sudden hate of ten thousand devils in his eyes.

“Why, it is that artist fellow—­Lemuel.  You don’t mean to say she hasn’t told you?  It is the common story!  And Mrs. Ross thought it was only a piece of nonsense—­she said they were always making out those stories about actresses—­but she went to Miss White.  And when Miss White could not deny it, Mrs. Ross said there and then they had better let their friendship drop.  Macleod, I would have written to you—­upon my soul, I would have written to you—­but how could I imagine you did not know?  And do you really mean to say she has not told you anything of what has been going on recently—­what was well known to everybody?”

And this young man spoke in a passion, too; Keith Macleod was his friend.  But Macleod himself seemed, with some powerful effort of will, to have got the better of his sudden and fierce hate; he sat down again; he spoke in a low voice, but there was a dark look in his eyes.