unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from side to side and his eyes
seemed searching in vacancy.

"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm.

"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him."

"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?"

"One of the maids and myself."

"I'll jist bide wi' 'im."

"That will be very kind of you."

"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or ither,",
added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor distrustful
friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him.

The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy marshes
which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of delirium, beset
the gates of life. That one so near the light and slowly drifting into
it should lie tossing in hopeless darkness! Is it that the delirium
falls, a veil of love, to hide other and more real terrors?

His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they gazed
tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out of the windows
was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a word would fall from him,
or a murmur of half-articulation float up like the sound of a river
of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something