'Nor light a pipe,' added Richmond jestingly, as he lighted his own pipe and began to smoke.

'I'm no sa sure about that, Sandy. Het words mayna be able to licht a pipe, but they may set on fire a wheen red-wud bawbee politicians, wha wadna be sweert to kennel the flames o' cevil war. I hope that's no the kind o' reform that Jock and his freens mean, though I hae my doubts. They're a' gayan sly; but secrets, like water, will seep through stane wa's; and, forbye, there's aye a bit birdie to carry the whispers o' them that daurna speak abin their breath. The very thoughts o' sic men are no safe in their ain heid.'

'Right, Pate,' said the spy, with a cunning gleam, it is a deep heart that cannot be made to give up its secret.'

'You twa may be richt, sae far as ye ken,' put in Mrs. Campbell; 'but the human heart hauds mony a secret that nae human power could mak' it gie up.'

'I'm no gaun to say but ye're richt,' replied Pate in a soft considerate tone. 'I didna speak o'a' men, but o' some kinds o' men, and o' some kinds o' secrets.'

'Still I suspect,' persisted the spy, 'that there's a key to fit each lock.'

In ae sense,' said Mrs. Campbell, looking full upon Richmond, who seemed rather uncomfortable

under the glance of her pure sad eye-in ae sense ye may be richt; for, after a', what's kent to twa canna be a secret, and a' secrets are kent to twa.'

'How?' asked the spy with trepidation.

'What a man kens, his Maker kens,' she answered in a tone of dreamy solemnity; and whiles,' she added, the darkest secrets o' cunning are laid bare to the pure ee o' the simple.'

An awkward interval of silence followed Mrs. Campbell's unexpected remarks. Pate was only puzzled; but Richmond felt as if somebody had lifted a curtain and looked into the darker chambers of his heart; and there passed through him, and made him shiver, one of those ominous chills which sometimes come like warnings to men engaged in doubtful enterprises. For a few moments he sat in a condition of mental confusion; but with a powerful effort he threw off the singular feeling, and rose to his feet, determined not to fall again under the spell of Mrs. Campbell's eye and voice. It is surely not possible,' he thought, that she can know anything. She makes me feel as if she did.' Then he remarked aloud,

6

I should like to have seen Jamie; but he is long of coming, and I fear I can't wait.'

'He's langer o' comin' than I thought he wad be; but I can never tell now when he'll come in.’

Mrs. Campbell spoke the latter part of the sen

tence sadly, as if with the feeling that her husband's habits were greatly changed, and not for the better, from what they used to be. Indeed, many things were changed in that household. Pate Fox himself, though far from being a man of delicate feeling or perception, felt that everything in the house had a starved and desolate aspect. Willie, in spite of his natural brightness and purity of complexion, looked spiritless and dull,—from hunger, no doubt,-while his mother seemed weary and wasted. Sometimes, however, a light burned in her eye which seemed unnaturally luminous, more so than the simple light of reason. It was the penetrating gleam of this light which disturbed the mental equanimity of the spy, and made him apprehensive that Mrs. Campbell knew something about himself that she ought not to know. Nor is it impossible that she did know or suspect something. The more errant forces of the imagination, when inspired by lofty emotion, or excited by suffering and undeserved misfortune, will sometimes penetrate farther and deeper than the keenest logic, and fetch back an authentic item of intelligence regarding some mystery of thought or fact. Why should Richmond haunt her husband so much? and why should Jamie have become more irregular since he began to do so? Important queries, surely, and quite sufficient to impel the imagination of the wife into the region of suspicion.

When Richmond, after giving Willie a sixpence, and saying that he would see Jamie in a day or two, had taken his leave, Mrs. Campbell remarked to Pate,

'I dinna ken weel what to think o' that man. He seems to be kind-he's gi'en Jamie siller twathree times; but there's something about him I canna like. He's no a member o' the Club, but it's aye about the Club that he speaks to Jamie. What does he want?'

6

'That's what I hae been trying to guess since ever he came in,' answered Pate; but I can mak neither heid nor tail o't. Sandy's a gay auldfarran chiel, deep and sliddry; and I dinna like his flittin about like a bauckie-bird in the mirk. But I ken nae ill about him, and I hope he means nane.'

'I doubt, he means nae guid.' And as she spoke the anxious wife went into a trance-like state of reverie, in which she remained for some time, staring unwinkingly into the fire. Pate watched her; and it struck him that, although he saw Mrs. Campbell sitting there in the body, he saw only a kind of living corpse, from which the mind had for a time wholly departed. He was frightened by the far-away lustreless stare of her eye, and made some noise to draw her attention. Failing in this, he spoke to Willie, but with no better success. Then he spoke to her; but she stared on, mentally deaf-at least

to all the physical world. At length, however, she turned to the twister, and asked with some energy, 'Are ye in a hurry to gang hame, Pate?' 'No in the least, guidwife.'

'Wad ye be sae kind, then, to wait wi' Willie till I come back, or till Jamie comes hame?'

That will I, though it should be till twal o'clock. Willie and me will tell stories and sing sangs.'

'I'll no be sae lang as that,' said Mrs. Campbell, as she cast a woollen shawl over her head, and went hurriedly out.

CHAPTER IV.

TRACKING THE SPY.

ON reaching the entry into the High-street, on the east side of which they lived, nearly opposite Bellstreet, Mrs. Campbell advanced cautiously to the front, keeping the shawl well over her head, so as to conceal her face. She went up the street a bit, scanning the people on the other side, as if she expected to see some one; and she did get a glimpse of a figure, which made her retreat into another entry.

The figure was that of Richmond, who was pacing up and down on the west side, keeping well in the