Sir Donald Leslie was engaged in preparing a bowl of hot whisky toddy, when his grandson and his guest rejoined him. He did not observe Colin's blanched face and wild, staring eyes. The boy strode to the fireplace and flung himself into his favourite seat in the corner, staring into the glowing red mass upon the hearth.  
When the two men had filled and lighted their pipes, and were comfortably seated before the fire, each with a steaming glass of toddy within reach of him, Colonel Ossington abruptly resumed the conversation at the point where it had been broken off some fifteen minutes earlier.
 
"My present appearance here," he said, crossing his legs, "is connected with certain mysterious events which occurred at the time of my first visit to Castle Leslie on the fifteenth day of April 1746—that is to say, on the eve of the battle of Culloden." He paused an instant as if to arrange his thoughts. Then, leaning forward and fixing his keen grey eyes upon his host, he said in a tone of sharp inquiry: "Will you tell me what became of your brother, Neil Leslie?"
 
Sir Donald received the question with a lowering of the brows.
 
"Ah," said he, as he pressed his finger into the bowl of his tobacco-pipe, "I had guessed that it was of him you came to speak. I had even gone so far as to expect that you were about to pester me by telling me you had met him out there in America. I don't want to know anything concerning him, Colonel Ossington. He disgraced and ruined his family, and whether he be dead, as I hope, or alive, as I sometimes fear, he is no more to me than the most utter stranger."
 
"If I had met him in America," observed Colonel Ossington, "I should have no need to ask you what had become of him. I know nothing of him—nothing of what happened to him subsequent to the evening before Culloden fight."
 
"I assume that you were yourself in that fight," remarked Sir Donald.
 
"Yes," returned the colonel, "I was then a young ensign. I served under Major James Wolfe in repelling the first attack of the Highlanders."
 
"Ah," mused Sir Donald; "then you would not come into conflict with Neil Leslie. He, I believe, remained studiously in the rear."
 
"Pardon me," corrected the colonel, "he was not on the field."
 
A blank yet somewhat haughty stare was the response to this unexpected contradiction. Sir Donald was evidently perplexed.
 
"I do not go so far as to declare that he was actually in the fight," said he. "But that he was somewhere on the fringe of the battle I am well assured. After the fight he fled with the defeated Highlanders, first to the Western Islands, and afterwards to France. Such at least is what my father believed concerning him—not that he went out of his way to make inquiries. You may be sure that he was in nowise anxious for the graceless scoundrel's safety. Indeed, if the truth must needs be told, Sir John was rejoiced to be rid of Neil at any cost."
 
 
"Rejoiced to be rid of him?" echoed the colonel, in surprise. "I do not understand. Neil Leslie was his father's especial favourite. And very naturally so, as it seems to me, since they both were Jacobites."
 
Sir Donald laid his pipe upon the table.
 
"Jacobites?" he repeated, in a tone half of surprise and half of disbelief. "Who were Jacobites?"
 
"Why, Sir John Leslie and his son Neil."
 
"No, no," returned Sir Donald emphatically. "You mistake the facts, colonel; you are dreaming. My brother Neil was a Jacobite, curse him. But my father, I thank Heaven, was as firmly for the House of Hanover as you or I."
 
"If either of us is dreaming," declared the soldier, "I am afraid it is yourself, Sir Donald. Surely you do not pretend that you never knew your father to be a bitter enemy of King George! Surely you, his own son, cannot be ignorant of the fact that for months—ay, for years—before Culloden, Sir John Leslie was secretly one of the most active friends and personal supporters of the young Pretender?"
 
Sir Donald had risen to his feet, and now he strode thoughtfully to the end of the room and back.
 
"If you are speaking the truth, I have been ignorant indeed," he said, with a frown. He turned and continued moodily to pace the room. To and fro he strode with his twitching hands linked together behind his back. Colonel Ossington quietly puffed at his pipe, while young Colin Leslie, in his seat at the ingle, leaned forward staring at the two men in fixed attention. No word was spoken for many minutes, and all was silent saving only for the wild, boisterous rumbling of the wind in the chimney, and the regular shuffling tramp of Sir Donald Leslie's slippered feet upon the bare oak floor. Presently this latter sound ceased, and Sir Donald stood still, ruminating.
 
"I cannot believe it," he said at length, confronting Colonel Ossington. "On what grounds do you base your conviction?"
 
"On the surest of all grounds," returned the soldier, "his own admission, and also my certain knowledge that when Charles Edward Stuart and his army of Highlanders were encamped on the moor near here, Sir John Leslie supplied them not only with the food which they so sorely needed, but also with money, with arms, and with ammunition."
 
A fierce light leapt into the old man's eyes.
 
"It is false!" he cried, in a quivering voice; "it is false!" He stamped his foot. "I do not doubt that you yourself believe what you are saying. Some knave or liar must have deceived you. But, all the same, it is not true. My father was as fervent a Hanoverian as I was and still am. It was Neil alone who was the skulking Jacobite. Ay, and to him I owe it that I am now so poor that I cannot even offer a chance visitor the hospitality that is his due. Had my father been in sound health at the time of the Rebellion, he would have joined the King's troops and fought as boldly as did my dear brother Alan, who fell fighting bravely and loyally for King George on Culloden Moor."
 
"In that last particular you are again strangely in error," interrupted Colonel Ossington. "Alan Leslie took no part whatsoever in the battle of Culloden. I, who was his comrade and friend, can testify also that he did not die a soldier's death—at least not upon the field."
 
"What!" cried the astonished Sir Donald. "Are you certain of this?"
 
"I am," reiterated the colonel, "absolutely certain."
 
"Then where in Heaven's name was he?"
 
"Here—in this house," returned Ossington, knocking the ash out of his pipe and slowly reopening his tobacco-bag. "It was of him more particularly that I came here to speak with you. I wanted to learn something of his fate, whatever it may have been. But it seems you know as little of it as I do myself. We were companions in arms, he and I. It was while I was stationed in Edinburgh that he joined Major James Wolfe's battalion of the Fourth Foot. I was then a young ensign. Alan and I were quartered together, and we soon became fast friends. We sat at the same mess-table, we shared the same bottle of wine, we smoked the same pipe. When it was a question of fighting, as at Prestonpans, we fought side by side."
 
Sir Donald filled his guest's glass anew. Colin Leslie continued silently to listen, believing that the old soldier was now coming to something more definite.
 
"In the spring of '46, you remember," went on the colonel, "the Duke of Cumberland's forces marched northward to Aberdeen, in search of the rebels. From Aberdeen we advanced to the town of Nairn, and while there we heard that the Pretender was concentrating his army of Highlanders at a spot not many miles away from our encampment. Alan Leslie and I were sent out to reconnoitre. We made our way westward and discovered the enemy on Culloden Moor. Believing that we might learn something further as to their intentions, Alan induced me to accompany him to Castle Leslie, in the hope of hearing news from the lad's father, who was supposed, although erroneously, to be friendly to the King. We arrived here at dusk and were admitted into this same room."
 
The colonel's eyes wandered about the apartment as if in the endeavour to picture it as it had been at that earlier time.
 
"For some two hours," he continued, "we were left here alone. During that interval of waiting, Alan told me the romantic story of Bonnie Belinda, the story being suggested by her portrait, which hung over yonder above the settle."
 
 
Sir Donald nodded and glanced across at the vacant place on the panelled wall.
 
"But at last," went on the speaker, "Sir John Leslie entered, with his plaid about his shoulders, as if he had newly returned from a journey. He regarded his soldier son with stony indifference."
 
"'Well?' he demanded; 'what do you want here?'
 
"'I have come, sir,' stammered Alan, surprised at this cold welcome. 'I have come——'
 
"His father bent forward with his hand resting on the table at his side, and almost touching Alan's regimental cap with its bright brass badge.
 
"'You have come as a spy!' he cried bitterly, following up the accusation with a volley of virulent taunts. 'You ingrate!' he cried; 'you weak-kneed renegade! Where is your patriotism? How dare you come here, wearing the uniform of the hateful foreign usurper whom you serve?'"
 
"He said that?" questioned Sir Donald agitatedly. "He—my father—said that?"
 
Colonel Ossington took up the fire-tongs and caught at a fragment of burning wood with which to light his pipe.
 
"Those were his own words," said he; "and they were not less surprising to me than they were to Alan Leslie. I do not exactly remember what Alan said in retaliation, but he taunted his father with being a Jacobite, and, as he said, 'the follower of an upstart Pretender'; and at these words Sir John drew himself proudly together and stood at his full height, which I am sure must have been a good six feet. 'I will not have His Royal Highness so named in my presence,' he declared with a frown, and pointing to the door in all the dignity of his old age, he added: 'You are no son of mine, and I do not wish ever to see you again.'
 
"But even as he spoke, the door was opened from without, and a tall, singularly noble-looking young man entered with the majestic stride of a monarch. He was followed by a yet younger man. At sight of our red coats both new-comers started back in amazement. Before either could speak, however, Sir John had hurried the elder of them out of the room. The younger man, whom I rightly guessed to be Neil Leslie, stepped back and, looking into Alan's face, smiled in recognition, and held out his hand. Alan refused to accept this offer of friendship."
 
"Ay, and quite right," interposed Sir Donald.
 
Colonel Ossington did not heed the interruption, but proceeded with his narrative.
 
"As the two brothers stood there, facing each other," he said, "I thought them the two handsomest youths I had ever beheld. ............