'I ken what's the matter wi' you better than ye ken yoursel', Ronald,' said she, looking at him shrewdly. 'You're disappointed—you're out o' heart—because thae fine American friends o' yours hae forgotten you; and you've got sick o' this new work o' yours; and you've got among a lot o' wild fellows that are leading ye to the devil. Mark my words. Americans! Better let a man trust to his ain kith and kin.'

'Well, Katie, lass, I maun say this, that ye've just been ower kind to me since ever I came to Glasgow.'

'Another glass, Ronald——'

'Not one drop—thank ye'—and this time he rose with the definite resolve to get away, for even these two glasses had caused a swimming in his head, and he knew not how much more he might drink if he stayed.

'Better go for a long walk, then,' said Kate, 'and come back at three and have dinner with us. I'll soon put ye on your legs again—trust to me.'

But when he went out into the open air, he found himself so giddy and half-dazed and bewildered that, instead of going away for any long walk, he thought he would go back home and lie down. He felt less happy now. Why had he taken this accursed thing after all his resolves?

And then it was—as he went up Renfield Street—that he caught his first glimpse of Meenie. No wonder he turned and slunk rapidly away—anxious to hide anywhere—hoping that Meenie had not seen him. And what a strange thing was this—Meenie in Glasgow town! Oh, if he could only be for a single day as once he had been—as she had known him in the happy times when life went by like a laugh and a song—how wonderful it would be to go along these thoroughfares hoping every moment to catch sight of her face! A dull town?—no, a radiant town, with music in the air, and joy and hope shining down from the skies! But now—he was a cowering fugitive—sick in body and sick in mind—trembling with the excitement of this sudden meeting—and anxious above all other things that he should get back to the seclusion of his lodging unseen.

Well, he managed that, at all events; and there he sate down, wondering over this thing that had just happened. Meenie in Glasgow town!—and why? And why had she sent him the white heather? Nay, he could not doubt but that she had heard; and that this was at once a message of reproach and an appeal; and what answer had he to give supposing that some day or other he should meet her face to face? How could he win back to his former state, so that he should not be ashamed to meet those clear, kind eyes? If there were but some penance now—no matter what suffering it entailed—that would obliterate these last months and restore him to himself, how gladly would he welcome that! But it was not only the bodily sickness—he believed he could mend that; he had still a fine physique; and surely absolute abstention from stimulants, no matter with what accompanying depression, would in time give him back his health—it was mental sickness and hopelessness and remorse that had to be cured; and how was that to be attempted? Or why should he attempt it? What care had he for the future? To be sure, he would stop drinking, definitely; and he would withdraw himself from those wild companions; and he would have a greater regard for his appearance; so that, if he should by chance meet Meenie face to face, he would not have to be altogether so ashamed. But after? When she had gone away again? For of course he assumed that she was merely here on a visit.

And all this time he was becoming more and more conscious of how far he had fallen—of the change that had come over himself and his circumstances in these few months; and a curious fancy got into his head that he would like to try to realise what he had been like in those former days. He got out his blotting-pad of fragments—not those dedicated to Meenie, that had been carefully put aside—and about the very first of them that he chanced to light upon, when he looked down the rough lines, made him exclaim—

'God bless me, was I like that—and no longer ago than last January?'