foamed the billows of an unfamiliar sea. All his nearest and dearest ties seemed either snapped or loosened; even material objects wore a far-away intangible look. He breathed a bitter air; and as he dragged himself from the Silent City,' he murmured, The very dead have names; but what and

who am I?'

6

CHAPTER XXIII.

PERSONAL IDENTITY.

ON the road home towards Millheugh, Mr. Dundas and Alan were at first both silent. Alan was full of the problem of his own existence, and wished to ask the advice of his friend regarding it. So full was he of the idea of himself, that even the glowing personality of Christine hung, in the confusion of his mind, like a planet in a mist. Yet she was not altogether forgotten, for he longed to speak of her also, though how to do it puzzled him beyond

measure.

Your new position, Alan,' Mr. Dundas at length remarked, 'is more unpleasant than singular. In this country, many excellent men have precisely the same fortune as yourself in the matter of parentage. Of course I don't offer that as consolation. It has

always struck me, however, that, in one sense, not only some, but most, men are parentless.'

Alan could only stare at this.

'I mean simply, that most men differ so much from both father and mother, that it almost seems as if any other couple might have been their parents. I refer less to physical than to intellectual peculiarities, from which spring the real identity of a man.'

'You have spoken of that before. I suppose that all a man's ancestors are his parents, and have something to say in the making of him. In cases like mine, it is the sudden destruction of social identity that stings. Two or three days ago I rejoiced in being Alan Dalziel. To-day I have, I confess, some sadness in being nobody.'

'Social identity! That's even more uncertain than identity of race or family. Hardly two in ten thousand have anything resembling the fortunes of their father. Circumstances change from hour to hour; and pulling down and building up in social conditions seem to be processes as imperative as the laws of night and day. Just look at the record of the Peerage. It is as desolate with ruins as the Valley of the Nile. Why, man, there are always some ten or a dozen beggars wandering about the world whose ancestors were kings.'

'If you mean that as balm,' said Alan sadly, 'it does not sweeten my case. It only reminds me that

I may be not only a castaway, but a link in a chain

leading to beggary.'

'Possible, but improbable.'

'How improbable ?'

'Well,' said Mr. Dundas, glancing at Alan with a peculiar smile, 'looking at you as a mere physical spectacle, you don't exactly wear the aspect of a fool; although, to speak honestly, you are not incapable of doing some of the foolish things which very clever men perpetrate every day.'

'Right, as usual; especially as to my genius for folly. But I want to ask one thing. Would it be foolish to try and find out who my real parents are, or were ?'

'The result could only determine that. You cannot but feel the importance of a subject so personal to yourself; but I doubt whether it would be at all advisable to spend much thought or time in an investigation, the end of which might gall you more than your present independence of family ties. There would be some glory in being the first of a race.'

'But none in being the last.'

'I can only repeat my former remark in a new form-you don't look like a last man. Whatever my own feeling might be, I think that a person, placed as you are, would be better employed in trying to become worthy of the best parentage than in

searching for somebody who might turn out to be far enough from that.'

'But one would naturally hope for the best in a search so peculiar.'

'Of course; and by that will-o'-wisp you will be led or misled through all the mortal bogs of chance or mischance. I knew a man whose case was exactly the same as your own. Like yourself, he was mightily cut and shaken when he learned that he was the son of-’

'The term will do well enough in an illustration. But as it was impossible for him to believe that he was the son of so ghostly a personage, he got the idea into his head that he was the son of somebody.' A shrewd guess, surely.'

'Well, he had many talents, and these must have had some kind of origin in nature. Without neglecting his duties, he searched more or less keenly for fully a dozen years, and at length discovered a clue.'

'Was it the right one?'

Right to fact, but false to hope. So far from being people of position-inhabitants of Olympus, as his visions told him they would be-they were dwellers in the valley, common people of the common earth. They were very common people, indeed; and so much beneath himself in position and tastes

that anything like communion with them was impossible. He helped them, but did not like them, and did not visit them. They visited him, however, and shamed him with their vulgar manners and brutal habits.'

This narrative rather disheartened Alan, who walked on for some time in silence, mentally reviewing the case, and viewing his own in the light of it. He paused at length at a spot where the valley of the Clyde opened up to the eye a wild stretch of tortuous scenery, which even in February revealed how lovely it would be in the month of June. Only here and there could they see a silver elbow of the stream sparkling vaguely in the misty hollow. This was a favourite point of view, and they stood still for a moment and cast their eyes over the landscape. They were thus still engaged when a woman cautiously crept from the wood a short distance in front of them, and looked up and down the road, as if searching for somebody. On seeing the two men, she went back into the wood at once.

'Is that not the woman we saw in the graveyard?" asked Lewis.

'It is not unlike her. What can she be doing there ?'

'Do the tinklers ever settle hereabouts ?'
'Sometimes,' said Alan. 'Perhaps she is one

of them.'