This conversation, however, as was natural, had a certain effect upon both the friends. It threw Colin, who, to be sure, was chiefly concerned, into a world of confused imaginations, which influenced even his dreams, and through his dreams reacted upon himself. When he was alone at night, instead of going to sleep at once, as would have been natural after his day’s journey, he kept falling into absurd little dozes, and waking up suddenly with the idea that Alice was standing by him, that she was calling him, that it was the marriage-day, and that somebody had found him out, and was about to tell his bride that he did not love her; and at last, when he went to sleep in good earnest, the fantastic mÉlange of recollection and imagination carried him back to Frascati, where he found Arthur and Alice, as of old, in the great salone, with its frescoed walls, and talked to them as in former days. He thought Meredith told him of an important journey upon which he was setting out, and made arrangements in the meantime for his sister with an anxiety which the real Arthur had never dreamt of exhibiting. “She will be safe with you at present,” the visionary Arthur seemed to say, “and by-and-by you can send her to me——” And when Colin woke it was hard for him to convince himself at first that he had not been in actual communication with his friend. He accounted for it, of course, as it is very easy to account for dreams, and made up his mind how it came about, and yet left behind in some crevice of his heart a dumb certainty which hid itself out of sight that it might not be argued with, that after all Arthur and he in the dark had passed by each other, and exchanged a word or thought in passing. Colin took care not to betray even to himself the existence of this conviction; but deep down in the silence it influenced him unawares.

As for Lauderdale, his thoughts, as might have been expected, had taken another direction. Perhaps he was past the age of dreaming. Colin’s revelation which he did not make had possibly told his friend more than if it had been said out in words; and the two began their second day’s journey with but little talk, and that of a vague and general kind. They had not gone far upon the white and dusty road when Lauderdale drew aside a little, and stepped across the boundary of furze and wild thorn and bramble bushes which separated it from the hillside.

“No, I’m no tired at this hour of the morning,” he said, “but I’ve an awfu’ objection to dust, and the road is as powdery as a mill. My intention is to take a seat on this brae and let that carriage pass.”

“Wait a little, then; it comes on very slowly; there must be some invalid in it, for the horses look good enough,” said Colin; and he turned his back to the approaching carriage, about which he was altogether indifferent, and faced round to the green slope, covered with trees and brushwood, upon which Lauderdale meant to rest. They were separated a little when the carriage came up, and neither of them paid much attention to it. Lauderdale was already half way up the slope, and Colin was standing by the side of the road, looking after him. Then all at once there was a sudden cry, and the horses made a dash forward, and rolled the equipage along at such a pace that its occupants were quite out of Colin’s sight when he turned round. This he did with a start so violent that the stones under his feet seemed suddenly to get in his way and trip him up: and Lauderdale for his part came down from the brae with a long leap and strange exclamation. “What was that?” they said to each other, in the same breath, and paused for a moment, and looked into each other’s faces, and listened. The carriage went on faster, raising a cloud of dust, and nothing was to be heard except the sound of the horses’ hoofs and the wheels. It was Colin who was the first to break the silence. He detached himself from among the stones and bushes, where he had got entangled in that moment of agitation, and sprang back again to the high road which lay before him, veiled in a cloud of dust. “It is simply absurd,” said Colin. “Lauderdale, I cannot imagine what you mean; you are enough to drive a man mad. Some one gives a chance outcry in passing, and you make up your mind that it is—— Good heavens! I never knew such folly!” cried the young man. He took off his hat without knowing it, and thrust his hair up over his forehead, and made an effort to take courage and regain his composure as he took breath. But it was very clear that Lauderdale had nothing to do with Colin’s excitement. He had himself heard the cry, and felt in his heart that it was no imagination. As he stood there in his pretended indignation the impulse of flight came upon him, mingled with a terror, which he could not explain nor comprehend. There was not a man in existence before whom he would have flown; but that little cry of recognition took away all his courage. He did not feel in himself the strength to go forward, to venture upon a possible meeting. The blood which had rushed to his face for the first moment seemed to go back upon his heart and stifle it. He had made a step or two forward without thinking; but then he stopped himself, and wavered, and looked upon the road which lay quite tranquil behind him in the shadow of the hills. It seemed to him for the moment as if his only safety was in flight.

As for Lauderdale, it took him all the time which Colin had occupied in these thoughts to get down from his elevation and return to his friend’s side. He for his part was animated and eager. “This is no her country,” said Lauderdale; “she’s a traveller, as we are. The carriage will stop at our next stage, but there’s no time to be lost;” and as he said these words he resumed his march with that long steady step which got over so much ground without remarking the hesitation of Colin, or what he had said. The young man himself felt that saving impulse fail him after the first minute. Afterwards, all the secondary motives came into his mind, and urged him to go on. Had he allowed that he was afraid to meet or to renew his relationships with Alice Meredith, supposing that by any extraordinary chance this should be she, it would be to betray the secret which he had guarded so long, and to betray himself; and he knew no reason that he could give for such a cowardly retreat. He could not say, “If I see her again, and find that she has been thinking of me, I shall be compelled to carry out my original mistake, and give up my brighter hopes,”—for no one knew that he had made any mistake, or that she was not to his eyes the type of all that was dearest in woman. “The chances are that it is all a piece of folly—a deception of the senses,” he said to himself instead—“something like what people have when they think they see ghosts. We have talked of her, and I have dreamed of her, and now, to be sore, necessity requires that I should hear her. It should have been seeing, to make all perfect;” and, after that little piece of self-contempt, he went on again with Lauderdale without making any objection. The dust which had been raised by the carriage came towards them like a moving pillar; but the carriage itself went rapidly on and turned the corner and went out of sight. And then Colin did his best to comfort and strengthen himself by other means.

“Don’t put yourself out of breath,” he said to Lauderdale; “the whole thing is quite explainable. That absurd imagination of yours yesterday has got into both our heads. I don’t mind saying I dreamt of it all last night. Anything so wild was never put into a novel. It’s an optical illusion, or, rather I should say, it’s an ocular illusion. Things don’t happen in real life in this kind of promiscuous way. Don’t walk so quick and put yourself out of breath.”

“Did you no hear?” said Lauderdale. “If you hadna heard I could understand. As for me, I canna say but what I saw as well. I’m no minding at this moment about my breath.”

“What did you see?” cried Colin, with a sudden thrill at his heart.

“I’ll no say it was her,” said Lauderdale; “no but what I am as sure as I am of life that she was there. I saw something white laid back in the carriage, somebody that was ill; it might be her or it might be another. I’ve an awfu’ strong conviction that it was her. It’s been borne in on my mind that she was ill and wearying. We mightna ken her, but she kent you and me.”

“What you say makes it more and more unlikely,” said Colin. “I confess that I was a little excited myself by those dreams and stuff; but nothing could be more improbable than that she should recognise you and me. Bah! it is absurd to be talking of her in this ridiculous way, as if we had the slightest reason to suppose it was she. Any little movement might make a sick lady cry out; and, as for recognising a voice!—All this makes me feel like a fool,” said Colin. “I am more disposed to go back than to go on. I wish you would dismiss this nonsense from your thoughts.”

“If I was to do that same, do you think you could join me?” said Lauderdale. “There’s voices I would ken after thirty years instead of after three; and I’m no likely to forget the bit English tone of it. I’m a wee slow about some things, and I’ll no pretend to fathom your meaning; but, whether it’s daftlike or no, this I’m sure of, that if you make up to that carriage that’s away out of our sight at this moment, you’ll find Alice Meredith there.”

“I don’t believe anything of the kind. Your imagination has deceived you,” said Colin, and they went on for a long time in silence; but at the bottom of his heart Colin felt that his own imagination had not deceived him. The only thing that had deceived him was that foolish feeling of liberty, that sense that he had escaped fate, and that the rash engagements of his youth were to have no consequences, into which he had deluded himself for some time past. Even while he professed his utter disbelief in this encounter, he was asking himself how in his changed circumstances he should bear the old bridle, the rein upon his own proud neck? If it had been a curb upon his freedom, even at the moment when he had formed it—if it had become a painful bondage afterwards while still the impression of Alice’s gentle tenderness had not quite worn off his mind—what would it be now when he had emancipated himself from those soft prejudices of recollection, and when he had acknowledged so fully to himself that his heart never had been really touched? He marched on by Lauderdale’s side, and paid no attention to what his friend said to him; and nothing could be more difficult to describe than the state of Colin’s mind during this walk. Perhaps the only right thing, the only sensible thing he could have done in the circumstances, would have been to turn back and decline altogether this reawakening of the past. But then at six-and-twenty the mind is still so adverse to turning back, and has so much confidence in its own power of surmounting difficulty, and in its good star, and in the favour and assistance of all powers and influences in heaven and earth; and his pride was up in arms against such a mode of extricating himself from the apparent difficulty, and all the delicacy of his nature revolted from the idea of thus throwing the wrong and humiliation upon the woman, upon Alice, a creature who had loved him and trusted him, and whom he had never owned he did not love.

Underneath all these complications there was, to be sure, a faint, sustaining hope that an encounter of this kind was incredible—that it might turn out not to be Alice at all, and that all these fears and embarrassments might come to nothing. With all this in his mind he marched on, feeling the sweet air and fresh winds and sunshine to be all so many spectators accompanying him perhaps to the turning-point of his life, where, for all he knew, things might go against him, and his wings be clipped, and his future limited for ever and ever. Perhaps some of Colin’s friends may think that he exhibited great weakness of mind on this occasion—and, indeed, it is certain that there are many people who believe, with great reason, that it is next thing to a sin to put honour in the place of love, or to give to constancy the rights of passion. But then, whatever a man’s principles may be, it is his character in most cases that carries the day. Every man must act according to his own nature, as says the Arabian sage. Sir Bayard, even, thinking it all over, might not approve of himself, and might see a great deal of folly in what he was doing; but, as for a man’s opinion of himself, that counts for very little; and he could only go on and follow out his career in his own way.

Lauderdale, on his side, had less comprehension of his friend at this point of his character than at any other. He had discouraged, as far as he was able, the earlier steps of the engagement between Colin and Alice; but when things “had gone so far” the philosopher understood no compromise. He hastened on through the dust, for his part, with a tender anxiety in his heart, concerned for the girl who had approached him more nearly than any woman had done since the days of his youth; who had been to him that mingled type of sister, daughter, dependent, and ruler, which a very young, very innocent, woman sometimes is to a man too old to fall in love with her, or even to think of such a weakness. Such love as had been possible to Lauderdale had been given early in his life—given once and done with; and Colin had filled up all the place in his heart which might have been left vacant as a prey to vagrant affections. At present, he was occupied with the thought that Alice was ill, and that the little cry she had uttered had a tone of appeal in it, and was in reality a cry for help to those who had succoured her in her loneliness, and been more to her for one little period of her life than father or family. And Colin’s friend and guardian pursued his way with great strides, going to the rescue of the tender little suffering creature, the mournful, yet dutiful little woman, who had borne her grief so courageously at Frascati, where they two were all the protectors, all the comforters she had. Thus the friends went on with their different sentiments, saying little to each other, and not a word upon this particular subject. They had meant to pause at a village which was on their way to Windermere to rest during the heat of the day and refresh themselves; and it was here, according to all likelihood, that the carriage which had passed with the invalid would also stop, to repose the sick lady if she was a stranger—to await the approach of the two pedestrians if it was Alice, and if she was free to take such a step. Lauderdale had no doubt either of the one or the other of these facts; and, to tell the truth, Colin, regarding the matter under an altogether different aspect, had little doubt on his part that the crisis of his fate had arrived.

Nevertheless, when he saw the first straggling houses of the hamlet—rude little Westmoreland houses, grey and simple, with a moorland air, and no great proprietor near at hand to trim them into model cottages—— It is so hard to believe what goes against one’s wishes. After all, perhaps, the end would be a laugh, an exclamation of surprise, a blessed sense of relief; and no dreadful apparition of old ties and old vows to bind the freedman over again in cold blood and without any illusion. Such feverish hopes came into Colin’s mind against his will, as they drew nearer. The road was as dusty as ever, but he did not see the broad mark of the carriage wheels; and with a great throb of relief found when they came in sight of the little inn that there was no carriage, nothing but a farmer’s gig before the door. He began to breathe again, throwing off his burden. “It might be one of my farmers for anything one could tell to the contrary,” said Colin, with a short laugh, and a sense of relief past describing. “You see now what fools we were to suppose——”

At that moment, however, he stopped short in the midst of his sentence. A man was coming to meet them, who might have been, for anything, as Colin said, that one could say to the contrary, the farmer to whom the gig belonged. He was at present but a black figure against the sunshine, with his face shaded by his hat; but notwithstanding Colin stopped short when he came in sight of him, and his heart stopped beating,—or at least he thought so. He had seen this man once in his life before,—but once, and no more. But there are some circumstances which sharpen and intensify the senses. Colin recognised him the moment his eyes rested on him. He stopped short, because what he was saying was proved to be folly, and worse than folly. It was a denial of the certainty which had suddenly appeared before his eyes. He stopped without explaining why he stopped, and made a step onwards in a confused and bewildered way. Henceforward Lauderdale had nothing to do with it. It was Colin himself as the principal and contracting party who was concerned.

And the stranger, for his part, who had also seen the young man but once in his life, recognised Colin. It had only been for a moment, and it was nearly four years ago, but still Mr. Meredith knew, when he saw him, the young man whom he had bidden to begone for a fortune-hunter; who had closed his son’s eyes, and laid Arthur in his grave; and given to Alice in her desolation the tenderest guardianship. He did not know Lauderdale, who had his share in all but the last act of that sad little domestic drama; but he recognised Colin by intuition. He came forward to him with the courtesy of a man whom necessity compels to change all his tactics. “Mr. Campbell, I think?” he said. “I feel that I cannot be mistaken. Alice was sure she saw you on the road. I came back after I had taken her home, to try whether I could meet you. Will you do me the favour to introduce me to your friend. I believe I am almost as much indebted to him as to you.”

“There’s no debt on one side or the other,” said Lauderdale, interposing, for Colin found it difficult to speak. “Tell us how she is, which is far more important. We heard her give a cry, and since then we’ve been hurrying on to see.”

“She is not strong,” said Mr. Meredith. “I hope you will consent to gratify Alice by going back with me. My house is close by here, and I came on purpose. Mr. Campbell, you may think you have a just grievance against me. I hope you will overlook it at present, and hear my explanation afterwards. We can never be sufficiently grateful for all you have done for my son, both before his death and after. It was a terrible dispensation of Providence; but I cannot be thankful enough that my poor boy lived to produce a work which has been of value to so many; and but for you it never could have been successfully published. My dear sir, I hope you will not suffer any personal feeling to me—— I beg you to believe that what I said was said in ignorance—I mean, I trust that you will not refuse to gratify Alice. She is almost all I have left,” Mr. Meredith said, with a faltering voice. “I have had great losses in my family. She has not been so much interested about anything for a long time. You will come with me, will you not, for Arthur’s and for my daughter’s sake?”

If any man could have said No to that appeal, Colin was not the man. He made little answer except a bow, and Mr. Meredith turned with them, and they all got into the country vehicle at the door of the little inn, and drove off in silence to the house where Alice was awaiting them. Colin had scarcely a word to say as he drove along by her father’s side. The gaiety, and freedom, and happy thoughts with which he had set out on his journey seemed to detach themselves from his mind, and abandon him one by one. His fate had encountered him where he had least expectation of meeting it. And yet at the same time a compunction awoke in his heart to think that it was in this way, like a captive brought back to her presence, that the man whom Alice loved was going to her. He could have felt aggrieved and angry for her sake, if the claim of his own reluctance and dread had not been nearer, and gained upon the more generous feeling. And yet withal he had a longing to see her, a kind of inclination to carry her off from this man, who had but a secondary claim upon her, and heal and cherish the wounded dove. Such was the singular medley of emotion, with which Colin was led back out of the free ways of his own choosing into the beaten path of life.