352 The Little Minister

He looked at the dog, but I kept my eyes on ,
him, and I saw intelligence creep back, like a
blush, into his face.

“ Now I remember,” he said, shuddering.
“You have proved yourself my friend, sir,
twice in the four and twenty hours.”

“ Only once, I fear,” I replied, gloomily. “I
was no friend when I sent you to the earl’s bride
last night.”

“You know who she is?” he cried, clutching
me, and finding it agony to move his limbs.

“JT know now,” I said, and had to tell him
how I knew before he would answer another
question. Then I became listener, and you
who read know to what alarming story.

“And all that time,’ I cried, reproachfully,
when he had done, “you gave your mother not
a thought.”

“Not a thought,” he answered; and I saw
that he pronounced a harsher sentence on him-
self than could have come from me. “ All that
time!” he repeated, after a moment. “It was
only a few minutes, while the ten o’clock bell
was ringing.”

“Only a few minutes,” I said, “but they
changed the channel of the Quharity, and per-
haps they have done not less to you.”

“That may be,” he answered, gravely, “ but it
is of the present I must think just now. Mr.
Ogilvy, what assurance have I, while lying here
helpless, that the marriage at the Spittal is not
going on?”

“None, I hope,” I said to myself, and listened
longingly for the cannon. But to him I only