* * * * *
Summer was spent, and Tweed murmured seaward between banks ruddy and golden with autumn's foliage.
In a house in Edinburgh, not far removed from Holyrood, clad in deep black, there lingered restlessly a Border woman, for whom the months had dragged with halting foot since a certain spring night near Norham.
"Will he come?" to herself she whispered for the hundredth time. "Surely he must come."
And as she waited, a flush leapt to her cheek at the sound of a step nearing her door. A man entered, grave, almost stern, of face, and she sprang to her feet with a cry, and with outstretched arms, that sank slowly to her side, as her eyes questioned those of her visitor.
"You have come," she said unsteadily; "you have come. And you know … my husband … is dead?"
"Rumours had reached me," he answered coldly. "When did he die?"
"It was in the spring, five months since. He was bitten by a dog, and he died … raving mad."
"Bitten by a dog?" he queried.
"Do you not remember? The dog you brought with you bit him. He never recovered. And … and he died mad."