CHAPTER I.

The place was Euston Square Station, the Metropolitan terminal depot of the London and Northwestern Railway; the hour 8:15 P.M. when from time wellnigh immemorial the London limited express has started for Scotland; the individual a tall, broad-shouldered man of, perhaps, twenty-five years, and known to the world, if not as yet to fame, as Richard Dalrymple.

As the traveller hurriedly took his seat in the first-class carriage which he had given the guard a couple of half-crowns to reserve for his exclusive use, he looked out with some impatience on a whole landscape of good-byes.

There were convivial good-byes perceptible in the refreshment department, there were lovers’ good-byes “the world forgetting by the world forgot,” then there were the multitudinous good-byes of good-fellowship. The universal parting injunction to “mind and write soon” was drowned in the hearty laughter and loud badinage which somehow or other appear to be inseparable from this station, possibly as a sort of counterpoise to the somewhat different style of off-going from the northern and sadder end of the line where the ties of friendship or kinship are apt to be closer and farewells longer and more affecting.

As Richard Dalrymple looked out upon the scene he thanked his lucky stars that there was no one there to bid _him_ good-bye, and lest even a passing acquaintance should recognize him he hurriedly drew the window curtains and retired into the seclusion of his carriage.

“Thank God,” he murmured to himself as the train moved out of the station, “I’m glad I’m off. It was safer to run away, she carries altogether too many guns for me.”

As if to divert his mind from painful thoughts, he glanced out into the night and watched for a while, after an absent-minded fashion, the wayside stations as they fled past in endless procession.

Then an inbound express dashed by apparently smashing all the crockery of the world as it went, and the shock so far dislocated his ideas as to induce him to leave the window.

“I suppose I may as well make myself comfortable,” he presently murmured to himself. “Barkirk is four hundred miles away and there is no change of carriages.”

Saying this, he exchanged his tall hat for the regulation travelling-cap used in those ante-Pullman days.

As he uncovered his head, his clear-cut profile crowned with a profusion of light brown curls, such as ladies love to toy with, shone white and clear against the dark blue of the carriage upholstery.

“A strikingly handsome man both as to feature and complexion,” all women vowed Richard Dalrymple at first sight--“and a manly-looking man, too,” they were prone to add when they saw his width of shoulder and length of limb, and noted the frank fearless look of the well-opened dark blue eyes.

And yet as he opened his cigar-case to while away with “a weed,” the tedium of the long hours, there was an air of anxiety perceptible on his brow and a worn look expressive of much turmoil and uncertainty of mind visible around his eyes, which, to all appearance, the joy he had expressed at his escape had not to any appreciable extent relieved.

As the dainty cigar-case of sweet-smelling Russia leather lay in his grasp a tender look came into his eyes, and opening the clasp, two lovely bunches of blue Scotch “forget-me-nots” lay before him worked in silk in marked relief on the soft lining of the case.

As he sat gazing at the small blue flowers a soft mist crept into his eyes and rose and rose until it blotted out both flowers and cigar-case and blurred the light blazing overhead.

Then from the innermost receptacle of his pocket-book he took a piece of soft tissue paper and extracted from it, with much tenderness, the half of a three-penny piece, which, after putting tenderly to his lips, he laid alongside the blue “forget-me-nots.”

“It is just three years ago,” he murmured to himself, “since Jeannie gave me these when I first left for London to try my hand at medicine there. I remember the very words of the old song which she repeated as she gave me the half of the broken coin:

‘Now take this lucky thrupenny bit, ’Twill help you bear in mind, A faithful, loving, trusting heart, You left in tears behind.’

And although I have never seen my darling since, I have been true to her in word and thought and deed.

“Yes, indeed, I have,” he repeated almost fiercely, as though someone had challenged his statement; and then, as if a twinge of remorse tortured him, he cried out, “Oh, forgive me, pet, if I have ever wavered, even for a moment; you know I have never loved anyone but you.”

The heavy tears dropped from his eyes, and fell on the blue “forget-me-nots;” and then, as if ashamed to show his womanishness even to the walls opposite, he looked out into the night, through which the express now plunged on its furious way, rocking under its sixty-miles-an-hour gait.

Richard Dalrymple was what is termed a good, square man, and under the strongest conceivable temptation to prove himself a renegade he was doing his utmost, and not by any means with eye-service only, to prove himself true to his little Scottish sweetheart.

The cause--not of his apostasy, for he was still true in word and deed, and yes, in thought too, to his _fiancée_--but of his anxiety, was, all unknown to him, seated in the adjoining carriage with a smile of mingled triumph and apprehension lighting up her splendid dark eyes.

When Richard Dalrymple had regained his composure and had lit his cigar, the lady in the next compartment, detecting the odor, smiled again.

“Make yourself at home, _mon prince_,” she murmured with a softer light in her brilliant eyes--“and good-night--a sweet good-night,” she added tenderly, throwing a mute kiss with both hands in the direction of the invisible smoker. “The woman who loves you will keep watch over you, aroon.”