Mount Royal, Volume 2 of 3

est winter, with which ever Transatlantic weather-prophet threatened our island. The sultry heat of a tropical Tuesday was followed by the blighting east wind of a chilly Wednesday; and in the t

a few days more, and in order that the days should not hang heavily on his hands, she urged him to make the most of his Scottish holiday by enjoying a day or two's salmon fishing. The first floods, which did not

one o' the presses," said the old lady;

m like a dream of grey wintry beauty-it is no more to him than a picture in a gallery-he has rarely time to feel Nature's tranquil charms. Even when he must needs stand still for a while, he is devoured by impatience to be scampering off again, and to see the world in motion. But the angler has leisure to steep himself in the atmosphere of hill and streamlet-to take Nature's colours into his soul. Eve

in, and followed the lightning-swift rush of the salmon down stream, and then, turning him after some difficulty, had to fo

e seeds of pneumonia under his oilskin jacket. Next day he contrived to crawl about the gardens, reading "Burton" in an idle desultory way that suited so desultory a book, longing for a letter from Christabel, and sorely tired of his Scottish seclusion. On the day after he was

d with eager trembling hands, looking for joy and comfort in its pages. But, as he read, his palli

make such poor amends as may be made for that wrong," wrote Christabel. "I forgive you all the sorrow you have brought upon me: it was in a great measure my own fault. I was too eager to link my life with yours. I almost thrust myself upon you. I will revere and honour you all the days of my life, if you will do right in this hard crisis of our fate. Knowing what I know I could never be happy as your wife: my soul would be wrung with jealous fears; I shou

r constan

abel Co

ct that had prompted this letter: a good woman's profound pity for a fallen sister; an innocent woman's readiness to see

and kissed the letter before

tabel. He asked his nurse to bring him a telegraph for

but to you. There can be no question of broken faith with

ingers scrawled the lines

laim the fulfilment of a bright girl's promise of marriage?

hed his soundings and questionings, Angus

out," he said, "and I believe you. But I want you to go a little furth

ur scemptoms may be temporary, and what pairmenent; but ye've a vairy sha

d of consumpti

iny other

eteen; my father's moth

ively retrospaict. Is this you

three

d doctor sh

g much of your life in thees country. Ye might do vairy weel in September and Octobe

I shall be a l

nces beyond human foresight. I couldn't conscienti

an in my condition is

nt a plai

t that you c

nd modern enlightenment, and our advanced knowledge of the mainsprings of life and death. What, sir, can it be less than a crime to bring into this world children burdened with an hered

ok of books. I k

Death, if not subdued, may be made to keep his distance, seemply by a due observance of natural laws-by an unselfish forethought and regard in each member of the human species for the welfare of the mult

ew brief years of perfect bliss, and go down lonely to the grave-to accept this doctrine of renunciation, and count himself as one dead in life. Yet a year ago I told myself p

said the Scotchman, gravely, but with infinite pity in his shrewd old face

feeling, and then silently turned his face to the wall, whereu

mselves immortal, and death a calamity of which one reads in the newspapers with only a kindly interest in other people's mortality. All through the gay London season he had been so utterly happy, so wonderfully well, that the insidious disease, which had declared itself in the past by so many unmistakable symptoms, seemed to have relaxed its grip upon him. He began to have faith in an advanced medical

he thing in the light-hearted way of a man for whom humanity is a collection of "cases," was jocose and congratulatory, full of wonder at his patient's restoration, and taking credit to himself for having recommended Hyères. And now the enemy had him by the throat. The foe, no longe

e-read Christabel's letter, s

selfish desire to do right. If she only knew the truth-but, better that she should be spared th

and wrote, in a hand which he strove to

ould pain me too much to explain. I have loved you, I do love you, better than my own joy or comfort, better than my own lif

ver aff

s Ham

Mrs. Tregonell, telling her of his illness, and of his conversation with the Scotch doctor, and the decision at which he had arrived on

aving her from infinite pain in the future, nothing that she or even you could say about my past follies would induce me to renounce her. I would fig

hed to his valet to bring books and other necessaries from his chambers in the Albany, and to meet him in the Isle of Arran, w