"You look worried," said Will Lockhart; "the place doesn't suit you. I told you it wouldn't when we hid behind Charity. Is there anything really the matter?" his voice took a softer tone, "anything I could help you to set straight?"

They were sitting by the fire in Lady Maud's little sitting-room, whither they had retired from the bustle inseparable from tea in the drawing-room when bad weather keeps even the sportsmen indoors. He said the truth; she looked worn and fagged, and her pose as she leant back in her easy-chair was one of listless fatigue.

"Nonsense! There is nothing the matter; nothing more than the usual worries of a hostess in tiresome weather. To begin with, it has prevented your coming here till you can only spare us a miserable day on your way to rejoin the yacht. Then Louisa, after wasting a fine week over the Portree gathering, was detained there ten days by storm. Finally, just as she started for the Highlands one at Inverness pour passer le temps, it cleared up. Since then it has been what is called unsettled; most of all for poor Eustace, who never knows for two days together what is going to happen. Then Lady Liddell caught cold at a picnic, and Cynthia Strong, whom I invited for the professor,--a Girtonite you know, does mathematics and all that,--seems uncertain whether she doesn't prefer Arthur Weeks, a man who hasn't a penny and can't do a sum beyond the compound addition of his bills."

"A catalogue of evils, certainly."

"That isn't all. The professor, who would make her an excellent husband, being in that set and with a charming house too at Oxford, does nothing but go over to Eval House to see Miss Macdonald--you knew her once, I think--well, he looks on her as an encyclopÆdia of discredited beliefs, a unique copy of an ancient work on folk-lore which the lucky finder is bound to purchase. Besides, she has a valuable collection--"

"When I knew her," broke in Will Lockhart hotly, "she did not need any adventitious attractions; she was simply the loveliest--"

Lady Maud's languid hands met in faint applause.

"I thought that would draw you. So she was the mauvais quart d'heure. I am not really laughing, so don't be angry; only from the way she spoke of you--"

"Did she speak of me?"

"How can you ask? And women never speak of the men who have loved them in the same tone of voice they use for the dense, indiscriminating multitude who didn't."

"Then Miss Macdonald's voice must change pretty often."

"Ah! was that it? you were jealous."

"Nothing so romantic. We quarrelled over some bread and butter--we were very young. Then circumstances favoured absence, so forgetfulness came, or at least indifference, absolute indifference." He paused for a moment. "And so the professor is there constantly, is he?"

Lady Maud smiled behind the fan with which she screened her face from the fire.

"He is there now, I expect. He went dune-hunting in the south this morning, and was to stop there for the night. Thought he might be late; besides, he must consult the encyclopÆdia."

Will Lockhart frowned. "This has made us drift from the point. Your husband, does he like the place?"

"Apparently. And the servants are satisfied too, which is a great gain. They get all their work done for them by the natives. It is an immense relief to shift one's responsibilities to other folks' shoulders, isn't it?"

He looked at her sharply. "There is something the matter. Is it only other people's love-affairs? And what, for instance, of that handsome boy downstairs who does Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak for your Majesty's feet all day long?"

Lady Maud leant forward eagerly, her whole face alight. "You mean Rick. Do you remember once, when you were very angry with me, saying I was enough to ruin any man in a week? It wasn't true, Big Bear. I couldn't spoil Rick Halmar."

"Have you tried and failed?" he asked cynically.

She shook her head and a soft half-smiling, half-tearful look came to her pretty eyes.

"You don't know him, and I can't explain. Yet I tell you that I couldn't spoil one of that dear lad's happy days unless--" she broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the image on the mantelshelf. "He carved that devil up there," she went on with the smile gaining on the tears. "The professor said it was a savage conception of fate, but it isn't. It is Rick Halmar's conception of my fate, and that--well, that hasn't much of the devil in it. Come! it is time I was returning to my duties as hostess."

"Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me."

"Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously.

"I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-assault case."

"Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days."

"Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so."

Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room.

"I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon."

"Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay."

"A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!"

Lady Maud's eyebrows went up archly.

"What a nuisance the elements are at times; aren't they, Mr. Lockhart?"

"I should think so," assented Rick cheerfully. "Why, we have been trying to get to Eilean-a-fa-ash these three weeks--haven't we, Lady Maud?--without catching a fine day and a suitable tide on the hop together. The sea ford might have done last spring, but it was too rough for the ladies to return by boat, or else too wet. But the first fine day. That is it, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr. Halmar!" cried Cynthia Strong from the window seat where Captain Weeks was blissfully useful over a skein of wool. "And please order the fine day soon, for I have to go by the next Clansman."

"Then I shall go too," murmured the captain.

"I suppose the birds will be getting rather wild by that time," remarked the young lady tartly. Theoretically, she felt bound to despise her admirer and his occupations; practically, his murmurs made her heart beat.

"Wild! Why, they lie like stones on this coast. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, I'm told, though I know nothing myself about these scientific things. But you can kick 'em up and shoot 'em like chickens on the last day of the season."

"And when is that?"

Captain Weeks laughed,--the true man's laugh of surprised tolerance. "I thought you knew everything, Miss Strong; but I don't suppose they think it worth while to teach girls. It's the 10th of December for grouse, but partridges go on till the beginning of February, and there's no real close time for--" His voice fell to the confidential tone. Eustace Gordon had meanwhile joined the trio at the door.

"Yes! let it be soon, please; for I may be going also. I've just heard, Maud, from Louisa, and the last idea is that I am to take the yacht, which she is sending here, round to Cowes, and that we are to start at once for less uncertain climes. The Mediterranean, most likely."

"That is very--unexpected. But all my friends are flying south, like the swallows."

"And I have to go furthest of all," said Rick ruefully. "I'm booked for the Pacific Station, as sure as fate."

"Then you must send me home a real Numbo Jumbo if you come across one," she replied, smiling up into his eager boyish face with a confidence absolutely free from all alloy.

"Won't I! and some of those jolly shells too; all the pretty things I can pick up."

"Thank you, Rick; I like pretty things."

He flushed with pleasure at her tone and words.

"Well, good-bye," she said, turning to Will Lockhart. "I hope the elements won't be too strong for you."

"Or for you."

Confidence here also, but of a different sort,--the sort which can give a reason for the faith that is in it. It seemed, however, as if Lady Maud's wish was not to be fulfilled; for as Rick Halmar and his companion set off across the moor, the southwest wind, even at that distance from the shore, sent a shower of spindrift in their faces.

"No leaving Carbost Bay for you tonight," shouted Rick against the wind. "You had better stay at our place. You used to know Aunt Will long ago, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I must get on. It may calm any moment, and the yacht sails as soon as possible."

Nevertheless when, after scudding with the wind at their backs for two miles, they came upon the ferry, one glance showed even Will Lockhart's inexperienced eye that the cockleshell of a boat, bobbing up and down in the backwater, could never fight its way through that mad mÊlÉe of wind against tide in the middle of the narrow stream. Comparative calm reigned to one side in the inland loch, and to the other in the open sea; but here the waves leapt at each other in pyramids, sending jets of spray upwards with the very force of their meeting. A good thrower could easily have flung a stone across the channel; for all that, it was impassable till the tired tide should turn and join the wind in its race eastward. So, at any rate, said Rick, adding that his aunt would be delighted at a contretemps which would procure her a visit from an old friend.

Why Will Lockhart should have hesitated, when it was raining cats and dogs, and it was two-and-twenty years since he had parted in anger from the hot-headed, quick-tongued chit of eighteen, who was now, by all accounts, a brisk, contented woman of forty, is not easy of explanation. Perhaps the thought of Lady Maud's triumph rankled; perhaps, when all was said and done, he was not quite indifferent to that possible future with the professor. But he did hesitate for a moment. That early love-affair had strangely enough been his first and last: not because it was in itself absorbing, but because other things more absorbing than Love had stepped in to take possession of his life. For a year or two, no doubt, resentment had lingered, not very keenly felt, but sufficiently so to prevent other love-affairs. Then he had painted his first successful picture, and that had been an end of all things, save Art, and a rather unreal remembrance that he had loved and lost.

However, common sense came to his aid, as it was bound to do in that drenching rain. And, after all, the professor was not in the well-remembered drawing-room whither Rick led him; neither was Miss Willina. Fortunately, perhaps, for her dignity, of which she was extremely tenacious, she had been in the potting-shed feeding a late brood of chickens presented to her that morning by an inexperienced young mother, who had preferred a bed of nettles behind the peat stack to the comforts of the hen-house nursery. So she had ample opportunity of seeing them pass up the ferry-path and of grasping the situation; to say nothing of smoothing her hair and washing her hands, before putting in an appearance; the which is a great support to most women in the crises of life. As a matter of fact, however, Miss Willina had never regarded this episode of her earliest years of conquest as one of supreme importance; perhaps some slight inkling that it really did mean more than she was prepared to admit was at the bottom of her deliberate want of romance on the subject. She had had many admirers, had them still for that matter; she was perfectly aware, for instance, of the professor's interest; but, for all that, she had never felt inclined to marry since those salad days when she had drowned her resentment in the knowledge that half the men who knew her were at her feet. Why should she marry? There was plenty of time and opportunity if she wished it; and then, when time passed, leaving her still Miss Macdonald, she told herself and every one else that it was of her own free will and pleasure. As it undoubtedly was. She scouted regrets, and only when the masterful current of her vitality slackened, as even hers had to do at times, did she wonder if that early love-affair had not been at the bottom of her cold-bloodedness.

Will Lockhart did not think her much changed. The daintiness and wilfulness he chiefly remembered were still there, and it was like old times to hear her order him up with Rick, to "change his feet," and see the swift touch with which she rescued an antimacassar from annihilation when he sate down. And this want of change depressed him, by emphasizing the long years which he could not forget.

There she was, much as he remembered her, and he--people told him also that he had changed but little. Yet in those old days it had seemed impossible to conceive of life apart, and here they were, both free, both unmarried, talking calmly, with a new generation for listener, about that past time. What had kept them separate except their own free will? Nothing! and yet had either of them deliberately anticipated this ending when they quarrelled over the bread and butter? And now she was thinking of the professor, or at any rate the professor was thinking of her. That was Lady Maud's account, and there was certainly a suspicion of consciousness when the learned man's name was mentioned; a palpable flush indeed, when a faint whistle overbore that of the wind, and she started from her chair.

"Rick! it can't surely be Mr. Endorwick!"

The blush made her look years younger, and Will Lockhart felt distinctly aggrieved at the fact.

"By George, it is, though," replied her nephew, after a glance through the field-glasses which hung ready for the purpose on the window-knob. "There he is on the other side of the stream. He has hoisted the flag, and is blowing away at the whistle like fits. His umbrella's inside out, and his mackintosh floating on the breeze. Do look, Aunt Will. It's awfully comic."

Miss Willina's face was a study of dignity and humour; the first prevailed. "Eric! I am surprised at your levity. The poor man will be drenched to the skin, and he so delicate; such a distinguished scholar too; we could ill afford to lose him."

"Give me the glass," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream. And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well remembered.

"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a windmill."

The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them, doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms frantically.

"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock. It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."

"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the glasses as Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and looked at his companion.

"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."

They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the passage of time.

He came a little nearer to her.

"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect that you were more wilful than usual."

"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."

"Begin what?"

"The quarrel, of course."

"No, thank you. There's the professor hauling down his flag; he has seen Rick, and acknowledged his defeat. Good man! Don't you think, Miss Macdonald, that it would be more comfortable by the fire than here at the window?"

"More comfortable than the professor is, poor man. That is what you mean. How selfish all you men are, and then you expect me not to see through you!"

"I don't think I ever was quite so exigeant as that, was I? And, do you know, I rather wish you would just cast your eye over my innermost thoughts at the present moment. It would save me beating about the bush."

Perhaps, despite her outward calm, she was a little excited; for she had taken up her knitting, half mechanically, and now the needles clashed fast and furious. He was leaning towards her, his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together, and something of his youth, not so much in its romance as in its imperious desire to know and understand, was in his face.

"Miss Macdonald, I've no right to ask, but are you going to marry--that man on the other side?"

She gave a little conscious laugh, half-nervous, half-gratified. "That is what you call beating about the bush, I suppose? Why--why should I marry anybody?"

For the life of him he could not tell, save that in a vague way that dead past seemed so pitiful: because it was dead and past. "Why did we quarrel?" he repeated. "If the Clansman hadn't come in unexpectedly that evening after her time, and so given me an opportunity of going off in the sulks, we should have made it up as usual. It seems such a little thing to come between us."

She laid down her knitting and looked at him thoughtfully. A woman less truthful than Miss Willina might have allowed the inevitable satisfaction of being remembered to give an extra tinge of regret and romance to that past, which in sober fact had had little of either; but Miss Willina's sense of humour was of the rare kind which is not blunted by egotism.

"Ridiculously little. In the novels--I read dozens of them in the winter--it is always something pathetic. A letter left in a blotting book, or a wrong initial on the envelope, or a false announcement of marriage. Something not to be foreseen or helped. Or if it isn't the fault of fate, they get brain fever and forget their own names. But we! We just quarrelled, and didn't care to make it up. It isn't in the least romantic, I'm afraid."

"But we didn't forget," he said in the same argumentative tone. "At least I didn't."

"Of course not. Does any one ever forget,--absolutely?" Her voice trembled slightly. The pathos of memory was not to be ignored entirely.

"It seems such a pity--you and I leading such lonely lives."

"Lonely? You should see my Noah's Ark."

"Well! Don't scoff at me. I suppose it is absurd, but to-night somehow--"

She interrupted him with a soft hand laid on his. "Don't, please don't. It is like children trying to pretend that their shadows on the wall are alive. But they are shadows; nothing but shadows, and the light which throws them--" she pointed to the window with a laugh that was half a sob. "Poor man! he ought to be extinguished by this time."

"Perhaps you are right," he replied sadly, still holding her hand; "but it seems hard--the shadows were so pretty."

"Not so pretty as the reality."

"What is that?"

"That we have met and forgiven each other--without payment."

"Aunt Will," shouted Rick, bursting into the room, "there's the professor in the front hall dripping like a drowned rat. I got the men and ferried him over on the first chance; now they are waiting for Mr. Lockhart."

Miss Willina was on her feet in a moment. "Take him upstairs, Rick, and put him to bed--between the blankets. I'll come directly with gruel and mustard. And, Rick! give him a good scrub--all over--with the roughest--bath towel--you can find."

The last directions were called up the stairs as she went into the hall to see Will Lockhart put on his mackintosh properly.

"Good-bye, Miss Macdonald. I'm not in the least envious of the professor's immediate future," he said with smiling eyes, but with vague regrets still at his heart. "I'm glad, though, he was at the other side of the stream to-night. I liked the shadows."

"And the reality?" she asked quickly.

He stooped and kissed the pretty little hand browned by sun and wind. "It is like the breath of your sea. The memory of it will help to blow away the cobwebs until I come back--in the summer."

"The summer is over."

"Not St. Martin's, and one often has a spell of fine weather late in the year when the earlier portions have been stormy."

She shook her head.