room where he lay was filled with pleasant sounds, most pleasant among which was the voice of his mother, who sang in his ear an exquisitely soothing melody; and that when he awoke in the morning there sat by his bedside, not Mrs. Dalziel, but, as he thought, the person whose despairing voice he had heard far down in the mysterious gorge over which he had been for a moment suspended.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SIR JOHN HOME.

Ir was fortunate for Alan Dalziel that the corner of the ruined chamber into which Hawk had dashed him was so well protected from the storm; otherwise, he had certainly perished before morning. But when morning came, and he awoke from a troubled and painful sleep, stiff, cold, and drowsy, he was able, although with infinite fatigue, to walk home to Millheugh. A delicate frame could hardly have survived a shock so severe; as it was, it confined Alan to his bed for a week, and to the house for a week more.

At first the incidents of that tempestuous night -the bitter brooding walk through the forest, and

the adventure among the ruins of Cadzow Castleappeared like a dream to his fevered fancy; but his physical wounds and bruises convinced his cooler reason that, however strange and romantic those incidents might be, they were realities and not illusions.

The one thing that embittered him most was the recollection of how near he seemed to be of learning the mystery of his parentage, and how cruelly that knowledge was dashed from his lips. He gathered from the hints dropped by Swallow that some gross wrong had been done to him, and that probably some crime had also been perpetrated in connection with that wrong. The thought of that failure gnawed his heart; and as he lay tossing in his bed he sometimes wished that Hawk had flung him into the abyss. He also tortured his mind by trying to guess who it was that could possibly have an interest in wronging a person like himself. But, of course, all his guesses flew wide enough of probability.

While Alan was thus lamenting his fate or denouncing the unluckiness of his stars, another person, whose name has only been mentioned twice in this narrative, appeared to be in an equally evil plight.

age.

That person was Sir John Home of the Hermit

Judging from appearances, there seemed no overwhelming reason why Sir John should be discontented with fortune, with the world, or with himself. Sir John's position and condition appeared to be excellent as well as assured. During his career as a successful Edinburgh lawyer, he had contrived to augment considerably the fine estate which he inherited at his father's death. Moreover, Sir John was not only cousin, but heir, to Lord Carmyle; and as his lordship manifested no special matrimonial symptoms, it seemed all but certain that his heir would, as his successor, ultimately become one of the most conspicuous men in the Lower Ward of Lanarkshire.

In the light of these lustrous facts, how was it possible for Sir John Home to be unhappy?

The cause of human unhappiness lies, for the most part, not outside, but inside of humanity. In the light of this view, the incompleteness of Sir John's earthly felicity will be easily accounted for. Sir John was by no means a rare specimen of the unhappy man. His misery arose from an internal quality and an external accident-endless desire and limited possession. Perhaps the word 'greed' would be a more appropriate description of his ruling passion. As, however, that passion took a lofty flight and a very respectable form, there was in the aspect of it an air of legitimate grandeur. It did not spend

itself in heaping together mountains of halfpence, but in the accumulation of land—the adding of rood to rood and acre to acre. This seemed a gentlemanly, a lordly, a ducal-nay, even a kingly ambition; and was not therefore to be confounded with the passion of the vulgar miser. Of course, a severe moralist would say that, in spite of its seeming gentlemanliness and legitimacy, it was, in the case of Sir John, only gilded greed-miserliness in a laced coat. He took the most extraordinary methods of absorbing properties contiguous to his estates; and not for the love of man or God would he part with an inch of his land. The mere idea of parting with the precious soil was like the rending asunder of soul and body. Had St. Peter, bringing with him divine credentials, descended from heaven to build a church, Sir John Home would have refused him a site for the purpose.

But had this gentlemanly land-grubber done nothing worse than refuse a church site to any possible saint, he might have become a saint himself. As it was, his maniacal land greed tempted him to do very ugly things, to which, as a rule, his smooth cunning and legal skill enabled him to give something like an appearance of decency.

One deed, however, he perpetrated, which it was impossible to polish into decency, although he had polished to eternity.

From his earliest youth the fascinating spirit which drew him onward was the knowledge that, if Lord Carmyle did not marry, or that, if he did marry, but had no children, the title and estates would come to him. He prayed-for wishing is praying, whether it be to God or devil-that his lordship would not marry, and that if he did marry, his children, if he had any, would never see the age of manhood. But when it became obvious that at least some of these prayers would not be granted, the thought then entered Sir John's mind that it might be possible to render them effective by a cunningly planned scheme of diplomatic interference. In honester language, Sir John gradually came to the conclusion that anything would be justifiable to secure the Carmyle estates to himself.

The huge mantle of Self, which so entirely enveloped him, concealed the less palpable figures of Sin and Crime which quietly entered into his mind, and sat down familiarly at the cold hearth of his conscience.

Then did he set himself to work out his great purpose; and by the exercise of a sort of devilish finesse, supported by utter unscrupulousness, he succeeded, apparently to his own satisfaction, in destroying the continuity of the Carmyle line of succession.

But the nature and manner of this crime, which good Sir John had contrived to muffle for twenty