CHAPTER XXVI.

CONFESSION AT LAST.

Sunset in the wild Loch Scavaig. Far up amid the shoulders and peaks of Garsven there were flashes of flame and the glow of the western skies, with here and there a beam of ruddy light touching the summits of the mountains in the east; but down here, in the lonely and desolate arm of the sea, the bare and riven rocks showed their fantastic forms in a cold grey twilight. There was a murmur of streams in the stillness; and the hollow silence was broken from time to time by the calling of wild-fowl. Otherwise the solitary scene was as voiceless as death; and the only moving thing abroad was the red light in the clouds. The Caroline lay motionless in the dark water. As the sunset fell the sombre and overshadowing hills seemed to loom larger; the twisted and precipitous cliffs grew more and more distant; while a pale blue vapour gathered here and there, as if the spirits of the mountains were advancing under a veil.

Oddly enough, the terror of Coquette had largely subsided when the Caroline had cast anchor. She regarded the gloomy shores with aversion and distrust; but she no longer trembled. Indeed, the place seemed to have exercised some fascination over her; for, while all the others were busy with their own affairs, she did not cease to scan with strange and wondering eyes the sombre stretch of water, the picturesque and desolate coast, and the mystic splendours of the twilight overhead. She kept apart from her friends; and appeared even to regard Lady Drum with a distant and apprehensive look.

Lady Drum resolved that she would speak to the Minister, when occasion offered. She was afraid that this niece of his was an incomprehensible young person, given over to visions and dreams, and requiring to be kept well in hand.

Dinner was rather a gloomy affair. Lord Earlshope seemed to consider that, for some reason or other, a conspiracy had been formed against him. He was very courteous and quiet, but spoke chiefly to the Minister, and that with a certain reserve. Lady Drum in vain endeavoured to be lively.

Suddenly the Minister chanced to perceive that there was something wrong. He looked from one to the other; and at last he said—

"This wild scenery has had its effect upon us. We have grown very grave, have we not, Lady Drum?"

"I think we are downright solemn," said Lady Drum, waking herself up as if from a nightmare. "I cannot understand it. Miss Coquette—as I am told they sometimes ca' ye—what does it all mean?"

Coquette looked up with a start.

"I do not know," she said. "To me these mountains look dreadful. I am afraid of them. I should be glad to be away."

Lord Earlshope did not reply to her, or endeavour to reason her out of her vague impressions. On the contrary, he regarded her—when no one else was looking—with a watchful and rather wistful scrutiny, which seemed to leave rather a sad impression on his own face.

The night was cold; and, after dinner, no one proposed to go on deck. Indeed, the autumn was rapidly closing in upon them; and there was comfort in the yellow light of the lamps, the warmth, and the open books down below. Lord Earlshope and Lady Drum proceeded to engage in a game of cribbage; the Minister took up a bundle of MSS.; Coquette receded into a corner.

Then she stole out of the place, and went up on deck. How wonderful was the darkness now!—for it seemed to burn with all manner of weird and fanciful lights. There were white stars dancing on the water—one great planet quivering on the dark plain as if it were a moon. Then over the peaks of the Coolins there still lay the lambent traces of the twilight—a pale metallic glow, which was far too faint to show on the black surface of the sea. A wind had sprung up, too, and it brought with it the sound of the mountain streams from out of the solemn stillness that dwelt everywhere around.

There came into her head the refrain of a song which she used to hear the sailors sing in St. Nazaire—

Après trois ans d'absence
    Loin de France,
Ah! quel beau jour,
Que le jour du retour!

"Why cannot I go back there?" she murmured to herself, "where there were no miserable days, no miserable nights? I am terrified of this place—of the people—of what I have become myself. If I could only fly away down to the south, and hear them singing that on the Loire—

Ah! quel beau jour,
Que le jour du retour!

—that is what I would say also, when I saw old Nannette come out to welcome me—and she would laugh, and she would cry to see me——"

The tears were running down her own cheeks. Suddenly there stood by her a tall figure in the darkness, and she started to hear her name pronounced.

"Why do you sit up here alone, Miss Cassilis?" said Lord Earlshope.

She could not answer. He took a seat beside her, and said—

"There is another question I want to ask you. Why have you avoided me these two days, and made me as though I were a stranger to you? Let us be frank with each other. Are you vexed with me because—in a moment of foolishness which I deeply regret—I revealed to you a secret which I ought to have kept to myself?"

"I am not vexed," she said in a low voice. "You must not suppose that."

"But I must suppose something," he said. "Why should I be your bête noire, from whom you must fly at every conceivable moment? If I appear on deck you seek refuge with Lady Drum, or go below. If I go below you come on deck. If I join in a conversation you become silent. Why should this be so? I proposed this excursion, as you know, for your especial benefit. The whole thing was planned merely because it might probably amuse you; and yet you are the only one on board who seems unhappy. Why? I broke my compact about returning to Airlie after seeing you a day or two on the voyage, partly through indolence, and partly because I fancied I might make matters smooth and pleasant for you if you went farther. I find, on the contrary, that I have become a kill-joy."

"Oh, no, it is not so!" she said, hurriedly. "There is no one in fault—no one but myself."

"But you are not in fault," he protested. "There has been no fault committed; and I want to know how the old condition of affairs is to be restored. I cannot bear to see you suffering this restraint from morning till night. Rather than have you pass such another day as I know you have passed to-day I would row ashore this moment, and take my chance of finding my way over to Broadford, so that you should have no fear of to-morrow."

"Oh, no, no!" she said, in despair; "you must not do that. And you must not suppose that I am angry with you. But after what you did say the other day——"

"That is it," he said, in a tone of profound disappointment. "I had already fancied my careless talk was a blunder, but I see only now how irretrievable it is. Well, I cannot help it. You shall not suffer the penalty of my stupidity, however. To-morrow morning you shall be free."

So he went away; and she sat still, silent and immovable, with a great pain at her heart. She listened to the murmur of the water along the shore, and it seemed to have taken up the refrain that had been running in her memory, only that it was more vague and more sad. "Trois ans d'absence ... loin de France ... jour du retour." Again she was startled by the approach of some one. She knew that Lord Earlshope had returned. He brought with him a thick shawl, and he said, in a somewhat formal and courteous way—

"Lady Drum asks you to put this round you, if you prefer to remain on deck. But the night is chilly, and you ought to go below, I think."

"I do not know why you should speak to me in that tone," she said, with some slight touch of reproach in her voice. "If all this unfortunate thing has happened, why make it worse? I hope you will not make us strangers to each other, or think me ungrateful for all the kindness that you did show to me."

For an instant he stood irresolute, and then he said to her—in so low a voice that it was scarcely heard in the murmur of the sea—

"And I have to thank you for something also. You have given me back a little of my old belief in the sweetness and innocence of good women, and in the nobleness and the mystery of human life. That is not a light matter. It is something to have some of one's old faith back again, however dearly it may be bought. The price has been perhaps heavier than you may have imagined. I have striven this day or two back to make you believe that I had almost forgotten what I told you. I shall never forget it—nor do I wish to. I may tell you that now, when I am about to ask you to say good-bye. It is not for you to be annoyed or troubled with such matters. You will go back to Airlie. You will scarcely remember that I ever told you my wretched and foolish story. But I shall not go back to Airlie—at least not for a while; and when we do meet again, I hope you will have forgotten all this, and will not be afraid to meet me. So good-bye now, for I shall not see you in the morning."

He held out his hand, but she made no response. What was it he heard in the stillness of the night?

Moved by a great fear, he knelt down beside her, and looked into her face. Her eyes were filled with tears; and the sound he had heard was that of a low and bitter sobbing. There broke upon him a revelation far more terrible than that which had informed him of his own sorrow; and it was with a new anxiety in his voice that he said to her—

"Why are you distressed. It is nothing to you—my going away? It cannot be anything to you, surely?"

"It is very much—your going away," she said, with a calmness of despair which startled him; "I cannot bear it. And yet you must go—and never see me again. That will be better for you and for me."

He rose to his feet suddenly; and even in the starlight her tearful and upturned eyes saw that his face was ghastly pale.

"What have I done? What have I done?" he exclaimed, as if accusing himself to the still heavens that burned with their countless stars above him. "My own blunders, my own weakness, I can answer for—I can accept my punishment—but if this poor girl has been made to suffer through me—that is more than I can bear. Coquette—Coquette—tell me you do not mean all this! You cannot mean it—you do not understand my position—you tell me what it is madness to think of! What you say would be to any other man a joy unspeakable—the beginning of a new life to him; but to me——"

He shuddered only, and turned away from her. She rose, and took his hand gently, and said to him, in her low, quiet voice—

"I do not know what you mean; but you must not accuse yourself for me, or give yourself pain. I have made a confession—it was right to do that, for you were going away, and you might have gone with a wrong thought of me, and have looked back and said I was ungrateful. Now you will go away knowing that I am still your friend—that I shall think of you sometimes—and that I shall pray never, never to see you any more, until wo are old people, and we may meet, and laugh at the old stupid folly."

There was a calm sadness in her tone that was very bitter to him: and the next moment he was saying to her in almost a wild way—

"It shall not end thus. Let the past be past, Coquette; and the future ours. Look at the sea out there—far away beyond that you and I may begin a new life; and the sea itself shall wash out all that we want to forget. Will you come, Coquette? Will you give up all your pretty ways, and your quiet home, and your amiable friends, to link yourself to a desperate man, and snatch the joy that the people in this country would deny us? Let us seek a new country for ourselves. You love me, my poor girl, don't you? and see! my hand trembles with the thought of being able to take you away, and fight for you, and make for you a new world, with new surroundings, where you would have but one friend, and one slave. What do you say, Coquette? Why should we two be for ever miserable? Coquette——"

She drew back from him in fear.

"I am afraid of you now," she said, with a strange trembling. "You are another man. What are you?—what are you?—Ah! I do see another face——"

She staggered backward; and then, with a quick cry, fell insensible. He sprang forward to catch her; and he had scarcely done so when the Minister hastily approached.

"What is the meaning of this?" he said.

"She has been sitting too long alone," said Lord Earlshope, as Lady Drum hastened to seize the girl's hands. "The darkness had got hold of her imagination—and that wild light up there——"

For at this moment there appeared over the black peaks of the Coolins a great, shifting flush of pink—that shone up the dark skies and then died out in a semicircle of pale violet fire. In the clear heavens this wild glare gleamed and faded, so that the sea also had its pallid colours blotting out the white points of the stars. Mr. Cassilis paid little attention to the explanation; but it seemed reasonable enough; for the girl, on coming to herself, looked all round at this strange glow of rose-colour overhead, and again shuddered violently.

"She has been nervous all day," said Lady Drum; "she should not have been left alone."

They took her below; but Earlshope remained above. In a little while he went down into the saloon, where Mr. Cassilis sat alone, reading.

"Miss Cassilis will be well in the morning, I hope," he said, somewhat distantly.

"Oh, doubtless, doubtless. She is nervous and excitable—as her father was—but it is nothing serious."

"I hope not," said Earlshope.

He took out writing materials, and hastily wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, which he folded up and put in an envelope. Then he bade Mr. Cassilis good-night, and retired.

But towards midnight Coquette, lying awake, heard cautious footsteps on deck, and the whispering voices of the men. In the extreme silence her sense of hearing was painfully acute. She fancied she heard a boat being brought round. There was a moment's silence; then the words, "Give way!"—followed by a splash of oars.

She knew that Lord Earlshope was in the boat which was now making for the shore through the darkness of the night. All that had occurred on deck seemed but a wild dream. She knew only that he had left them—perhaps never to see her again in this world; she knew only that her heart was full of anguish; and that her fast-flowing tears could not lessen the aching pain.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LOIN DE FRANCE.

A dull grey day lay over Loch Scavaig. A cold wind came in from the sea, and moaned about the steep rocks, the desolate hills, and the dark water. The wildfowl were more than usually active, circling about in flocks, restless and noisy. There were signs of a change in the weather, and it was a change for the worse.

Mr. Cassilis was the first on deck.

"Please, sir," said the skipper, coming forward to him, "his lordship bade me say to ye that he had to leave early this morning to catch the steamer, and didna want to disturb ye. His lordship hoped, sir, you and my lady would consider the yacht your own while ye stayed in it, and I will take your orders for anywhere ye please."

"What a strange young man!" said the Minister to himself, as he turned away.

He met Lady Drum, and told her what he had heard.

"He is fair daft," said the elderly lady, with some impatience. "To think of bringing us up here to this outlandish place, and leaving us without a word o' apology; but he was never to be reckoned on. I have seen him get into a frightful temper, and walk out o' my house, just because a young leddy friend o' mine would maintain that he looked like a married man."

"How is my niece?" said the Minister.

"I was about to tell ye, sir," returned Lady Drum, in a cautious and observant way, "that she is still a little feverish and excited. I can see it in her restlessness and her look. It must have been coming on; and last night—wi' the darkness, and the wildness o' this fearsome place, and the red Northern Lights in the sky—it is no wonder she gave way."

"But I hope it is not serious," said the Minister, hastily. "I know so little of these ailments that I must ask ye to be mindful o' her, as if she were your own child, and do with her what ye think proper. Is she coming on deck?"

"No," said Lady Drum, carefully watching the effect of her speech as she proceeded. "She will be better to lie quiet for the day. But we must guard against her having another shock. We must get away from here, sir, directly."

"To be sure, to be sure," said the Minister, almost mechanically. "Where shall we go?"

"Let us go straight back to Oban, and from there perhaps Miss Cassilis would prefer to go to Greenock by the steamer."

The skipper received his orders. Fortunately, although the day was lowering and dismal, the wind did not rise, and they had a comparatively smooth voyage southwards. The Minister remained on deck, anxious and disturbed; Lady Drum was in attendance on Coquette.

The Minister grew impatient and a trifle alarmed when no news came from his niece. At last he went below and knocked at the door of her state-room. Lady Drum came out, shut the door behind her, and went with the Minister along into the saloon.

"But how is she?" said he. "Why does she keep to her room if she can come out?"

Lady Drum was evidently annoyed and embarrassed by these questions, and answered them in a hesitating and shuffling way. At length she said, somewhat insidiously—

"Ye do not understand French, Mr. Cassilis?"

"No," said the Minister; "I have never studied the language of a nation whose history is not pleasant to me."

"I once knew plenty of French," said Lady Drum, "and oven now manage to get through a letter to my friends in Paris; but her rapid talk——"

"Whose rapid talk?" said the Minister.

"Why, your niece——"

"Is it French she is talking?" said he.

Lady Drum bit her lip and was silent; she had blurted out too much.

"You do not mean to say that Catherine is delirious?" said the Minister, suddenly standing up with a pale face, as if to meet and defy the worst news that could reach him.

Lady Drum hurriedly endeavoured to pacify him. It was nothing. It was but a temporary excitement. She would recover with a little rest. But this tall, sad-faced man would hear none of these explanations; he passed Lady Drum, walked along and entered the state-room, and stood by the little bed where his niece lay.

She saw him enter, and there was a smile of welcome on her pale face. Perhaps it was the dim light, or the exceeding darkness and lustre of the eyes which were fixed upon him, which made her look so pale; but her appearance there, with her wild dark hair lying loosely on the white pillow, struck him acutely with a sense of vague foreboding and pain.

"Is it you, papa?" she said, quietly, and yet with a strange look on her face. "Since I have been ill I have been learning English to speak to you, and I can speak it very well. Only Nannette does not seem to understand—she tires me—you must send her away——"

With a weary look she let her face sink into the pillow.

"Catherine," said the Minister, with a great fear at his heart, "don't you know me?"

She did not answer or pay any attention for a few seconds, and then she said:

"Yes, of course, I know. But you must teach me how to sleep, papa, for there is a noise all round me, and I cannot sleep. It is like waves, and my head is giddy and rocks with it and with the music. You must keep Nannette from singing, papa—it vexes me—and it is always the same—trois ans d'absence—loin de France—ah, quel beau jour!—and I hear it far away—always Nannette singing——"

Lady Drum stole in behind the Minister, and laid her hand on his arm.

"You must not be alarmed," she whispered; "this is nothing but the excitement of yesterday, and she may have caught a cold and made herself subject to a slight fever."

The Minister said nothing, but stood in a dazed way, looking at the girl with his sad grey eyes, and apparently scarcely able to realise the scene before him.

"When shall we reach Tobermory?" he asked, at length.

"In about two hours," said Lady Drum.

The girl had overheard; for she continued to murmur, almost to herself—

"Shall we be home again, papa, in two hours, and go up past St. Nazaire? It is a long time since we were there—so long ago it seems a mist, and we have been in the darkness. Ah! the darkness of last night out on the sea, with the wild things in the air—the wild things in the air—and the waves crying along the shore. It is three years of absence, and we have been away in dreadful places, but now there is home again, papa—home, and Nannette is singing merrily in the garden, and my mamma does come to the gate. But why does she not speak? Why does she turn from me? Does she not know me any more—not know Coquette? And see! sue! papa, it is all going away: the garden is going back and back—my mamma has turned her face away, and I can scarcely see her for the darkness—have we not got home, not yet, after all?—for it is away now in a mist, and I can see nothing, and not even hear Nannette singing."

The Minister took the girl's hand in his; great tears were running down his cheeks, and his voice was broken with sobs.

"My girl, we shall be home presently. Do not distress yourself about it; lie still, the boat is carrying you safely home."

He went on deck; he could not bear to look any more on the beautiful, wistful eyes that seemed to him full of entreaty. They carried a cruel message to him—like the dumb look of pain that is in an animal's eyes, when it seeks relief, and none can be given. Impatiently he watched the yacht go down through the desolate waste of grey sea, the successive headlands and bays slowly opening out as she sped on. He paced up and down the narrow strip of deck, wearying for the vessel to get round Ardnamurchan. It was clearly impossible for them to reach Oban that night; but surely there would be a doctor in Tobermory, who could give Lady Drum sufficient directions.

The evening was deepening into dusk as they got into the Sound of Mull. Coquette had fallen into a deep sleep, and her constant nurse and attendant was rejoiced. The Minister, however, was not a whit less anxious; and it was with eager eyes that he scanned the narrowing distance between the prow of the yacht and Tobermory Bay. At length the Caroline reached her berth for the night, and the anchor was scarcely let go when the Minister got into the gig and was rapidly rowed ashore. A short time thereafter he had returned to the yacht, bringing with him the doctor; while Lady Drum had gone on deck to see that the sailors postponed the more noisy of their operations until Coquette should have awakened from her slumbers.

The Minister's first notion had been that his niece should be taken ashore so soon as they got near a habitable house. But, apart from the danger of the removal, could she be better situated in a Tobermory inn than in this little cabin, where she could have the constant care of Lady Drum? The present consultation afforded him some relief. It was probably only a slight fever, the result of powerful nervous excitement and temporary weakness of the system. She was to remain where she was, subject to the assiduous attentions of her nurse; a physician was to be consulted when they reached Oban; and, if circumstances then warranted it, she might be gently taken south in the yacht to her own home.

Next day, however, the fever had somewhat increased; and the wild imaginings—the pathetic appeals—and the incoherent ramblings of the girl's delirium grew in intensity. The bizarre combinations of all her recent experiences were so foreign to all probability that her nurse paid but little attention to them, although she was sometimes deeply affected by the pathetic reminiscences of her charge, or by the lurid descriptions of dark sea scenes which were apparently present to the girl's imagination with a ghastly distinctness. Yet through all these fantastic groupings of mental phenomena there ran a series of references to Lord Earlshope, which Lady Drum was startled to find had some consistency. They occurred in impossible combinations with other persons and things; but they repeated, with a strange persistency, the same impressions. On the afternoon of the day on which hey arrived at Oban—the physician having come and gone—Coquette beckoned her companion to sit down by her. She addressed her as Nannette, as she generally did, mistaking her elderly friend for her old nurse.

"Listen, Nannette. Yesterday I did see something terrible. I cannot forget it," she said, in a low voice, with her dark eyes apparently watching something in the air before her. "It was Lord Earlshope coming over the sea to me—walking on the water—and there was a glare of light around him; and he seemed an angel that had come with a message, for he held something in his hand to me, and there was a smile on his face. You do not know him, Nannette—it is no matter. All this happened long ago—in another country—and now that I am home again it is forgotten, except when I dream. Are you listening, poor old Nannette? As he came near the boat, I held out my hand to save him from the waves. Ah! the strange light there was. It seemed to grow day, although we were up in the north, under the black mountains, and in the shadow of the night-clouds. I held out my hand to him, Nannette; and he had almost come to me—and then—and then—there was a change—and all the light vanished, and he dropped down into the sea, and in place of Lord Earlshope there was a fearful thing—a devil—that laughed in the water, and swam round, and I ran back for fear. There was a red light around him in the sea, and he laughed, and stretched up his hands. Oh, it was dreadful—dreadful—Nannette!" the girl continued, moaning and shuddering. "I cannot close my eyes but I see it—and yet, where is the letter I got before he sank into the water?"

She searched underneath her pillow for the note which Earlshope had left for her on the night before he went. She insisted on Lady Drum reading it. The old lady opened the folded bit of paper, and read the following words—"I was mad last night. I do not know what I said. Forgive me; for I cannot forgive myself."

What should she do with this fragment of correspondence winch now confirmed her suspicions? If she were to hand it back to the girl it was probable she might in her delirium give it to Mr. Cassilis, who had enough to suffer without it. After all, Lady Drum reflected, this message criminated no one; it only suggested a reason for Lord Earlshope's sudden departure. She resolved to retain that note in her possession for the meantime, and give it back to Coquette when the girl should have recovered.

"May I keep this message for a little while?" she asked, gently.

Coquette looked at it, and turned away her head and murmured to herself—

"Yes, yes, let it go—it is the last bit of what is now all past and gone. Why did I ever go away from France—up to that wild place in the north, where the night has red fire in it, and the sea is full of strange faces? It is all past and gone. Nannette, Nannette, have I told you of all that I saw in Scotland—of the woman who did take my mother's crucifix from me, and the old man I used to fear, and the Highlander, and my brave cousin Tom, and my uncle, and—and another who has got no name now! I should not have gone there—away from you, my poor old Nannette—but now it is all over, and I am come home again. How pleasant it is to be in the warm south again, Nannette! I shall never leave France any more—I will stay here, under the bright skies, and we will go down to the river, as we used to do, and you will sing to me. Nannette, Nannette, it is a pretty song—but so very sad—do you not know that this is the day of our return to France—that we are at home now—at home?"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AFTER MANY DAYS.

It was a Sunday morning in winter. For nearly a fortnight Airlie moor had been lying under a black frost. The wind that whistled through the leafless woods and swept over the hard ground was bitterly cold; the sky was grey and cheerless; the far stretch of the sea was more than usually desolate. The winter had come soon on the heels of autumn; and already all the manifold signs of life which had marked the summer were nipped off and dead. The woods were silent; the murmur of the moorland rivulet had been hushed, for its narrow channel contained a mass of ice; and the stripped and bare fields over which the piercing wind blew were hard as iron.

Then there was one night's snow; and in a twinkling the whole scene was changed. On the Saturday night a certain stranger had arrived in Ardrossan, and put up at an inn there. He had come down from Glasgow in a third-class carriage, and had had a sufficiently cheerless journey. But now, on this Sunday morning, when he got up, and went out, lo! there was a new world all around him. The sun was shining brightly over the great white fields; the trees hung heavy with the snow; the straggling groups of men and women coming in from the country to church, moved ghostlike and silent along the white roads; and the sea outside had caught a glimmer of misty yellow from the sunlight, and was almost calm. The bright and clear atmosphere was exhilarating, although yet intensely cold; and as this solitary adventurer issued forth from the town, and took his way up to the high country, the keen air brought a glow of colour into his young and healthy face. The frost had evidently neither stiffened his limbs nor congealed his blood; and yet even when the brisk exercise had made him almost uncomfortably warm, he still kept his Scotch cap well down over his forehead, while the collar of his topcoat was pulled up so as to conceal almost the whole of the rest of his face.

His light and springy step took him rapidly over the ground, and his spirits rose with the fresh air and the joyous exercise. He began to sing "Drumclog," Sunday morning as it was. Then, when he had gained a higher piece of country, and turned to look round him on the spacious landscape—when he saw the far hills and the valleys shining in the sunlight, the snow lying thick and soft on the evergreens, and the sea grown blue and silvery around the still whiteness of the land—he drew a long breath, and said to himself:

"Wouldn't it be worth while to live twenty years in Glasgow to catch a glimpse of such a picture as that, and get a mouthful of the clear air?"

By-and-by he came in sight of Airlie, and then he moderated his pace. Over the silence of the snow he could hear the sharp clanging of a bell. A dark line of stragglers was visible on the whiteness of the moor, on their way to the small church, the roof of which sparkled in the sunlight. Beyond that again, and higher up, was the dusky wall of the Manse, over which looked some of the windows of the house. One of the panes caught the sun at an angle, and sent out into the clear atmosphere a burning ray of light, which glittered over the moor like a yellow star.

At last he came to a dead stop, by the side of a piece of coppice. He heard voices behind him, and, turning, saw two or three people coming up the road. Evidently wishing to avoid them, he jumped over the low hedge by the side of the path, and made his way a little distance into the wood. The thickness and softness of the feathery snow deadened every sound.

But when he looked towards the road again, he saw that through the leafless trees it might be possible for any one to descry him; and so he went on again, gradually getting down into a hollow, until, suddenly, he found himself confronted by a man. The two looked at each other; the one alarmed, the other annoyed. At last, the elder of the two called out:

"Cot pless me, is it you, indeed and mirover?"

The younger of the two men did not answer, but began to look about, and, after a brief search, picked up a bit of string and wire which lay plainly marked on the snow.

"Neil, Neil, is this how ye spend the Sabbath morning?" said he.

"And wass you thinking, sat bit o' string wass mine?" said Neil, indignantly, "when it is John M'Kendrick will ask me to go out and watch sa men frae the iron-works sat come up to steal sa rabbits!"

"Oh! ye were sent out to watch the poachers?"

"Jist sat," said Neil the Pensioner, looking rather uncomfortably at the snare in the other's hands.

"Do ye ken where leears gang to?" said the Whaup—for he it was.

"Toots, toots, man!" said the Pensioner, insidiously, "what is sa harm if a body rins against a bit rabbit? There is mair o' them san we can a' eat; and when ye stand in sa wood, wi' your legs close, sey rin just clean against your feet, and it will pe no human man could keep his fingers aff. And what for are ye no at sa kirk yersel', Maister Tammas?"

"Look here, Neil," said the Whaup, decisively, "I have come down from Glasgow for an hour or so; and nobody in Airlie maun ken any thing about it. Do ye understand? As soon as the folk are in church, I am going up to the Manse; and I will make Leezibeth swear not to tell. As for you, Neil, if ye breathe a word o't, I'll hae ye put in Ayr jail for poaching.

"It wassna poaching," said Neil, in feeble protest.

"Now tell me all about the Airlie folk," said the Whaup. "What has happened? What have they been doing?"

"Ye will ken sat nothing ever happens in Airlie," said Neil, with a slight touch of contempt; "there hassna been a funeral or any forgatherin' for a lang time, and there is mair change in you, Maister Tammas, than in Airlie. You will have pecome quite manly-like, and it is only sa short while you will pe away. Mirover, sare is more life going on in Glasgow—eh, Maister Tammas?"

The old Pensioner spoke wistfully about Glasgow, which he knew had plenty of funerals, marriages, and other occasions for dram-drinking.

"Is my cousin as much better as they said?"

"Oh, she will pe much petter, but jist as white as the snaw itsel'. I wass up to see her on sa Wednesday nicht, and she will say to me—'Neil, where iss your fiddle?' but who would ha' socht o' taking up sa fiddle? And I did have a dram, too."

"Probably," said the Whaup. "Lord Earlshope—what has become of him?"

"Nobody will know what hass come to him, for he is not here since sey all went away in sa yacht. I tit hear, mirover, he wass in France—and sare is no knowing what will happen to a man in sat country, ever since Waterloo. But Lord Earlshope will pe safer if he will tell them sat he is English. Sey canna bear sa Scotch ever since what we did at Waterloo, as I will have told you often, but sa English—I do not sink it will matter much harm to them in France."

"I should think not, Neil. It was the Highlanders settled them that day, wasn't it?"

"I will tell you," said Neil, drawing himself up to his full height. "It wass Corporal Mackenzie said to me, at six o'clock in sa morning—'Neil,' said he, 'sare will be no Bonypart at the end o' this day, if I can get at him wis my musket.' Now Corporal Mackenzie was a strong, big man——"

"Neil, you have told me all that before," said the Whaup. "I know that you and Corporal Mackenzie took a whole battery captive—men, horses, and guns. You told me before."

"And if a young man hass no pride in what his country hass done; if he will not hear it again and again," said Neil, with indignation, "it is not my fault."

"Another time, Neil, we will go over the story from end to end. There, the bells have just stopped. I must get on now to the Manse. Remember, if you let a human being know you saw me in Airlie this day, it will be Ayr jail for ye."

The Pensioner laughed, and said:

"You wass always a goot hand at a joke, Maister Tammas."

"Faith, you won't find it any joke, Neil," said the Whaup, as he bade good-bye to the old man, and went off.

As he crossed the moor—the white snow concealing deep ruts filled with crackling ice, into which he frequently stumbled—he saw the beadle come out and shut the outer door of the church. Not a sign of life was now visible as far as the eye could see—only the white heights and hollows, with dark lines of hedges, and the grey twilight of the woods. The sun still shone on the Manse windows, and as he drew near a thrush flew out of one of the short firs in front of the house, bringing down a lot of snow with the flutter of its wings.

He lifted the latch gently, and walked into the front garden. A perfect stillness reigned around. Everybody was evidently at church—unless, indeed, Leezibeth might have been left with Coquette. The Whaup looked over the well-known scene of many an exploit. He slipped round the house, too, to have a glimpse at the rest of the premises. A blackbird flew out of one of the bushes with a cry of alarm. A robin came hopping forward on the snow and cocked up its black and sparkling eye at the intruder. There were two or three round patches of snow on the walls of the stable; and the Whaup, recognising these traces, knew that his brothers must have been having high jinks there this morning before the Manse had awoke.

Then he went back and cautiously entered the hall. What was this low and monotonous sound he heard issuing from the parlour? He applied his ear to the door, and heard Leezibeth reading out, in a measured and melancholy way, a chapter of Isaiah.

"What does that mean?" thought the Whaup. "She never used to read to herself. Can she be reading to Coquette; and is that the enlivening drone with which she seeks to interest an invalid?"

It seemed to him, also, that if Leezibeth were reading to Coquette, she was choosing passages with a sinister application. He heard the monotonous voice go on:—"Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate." The cheeks of the Whaup began to burn red with something else than the cold. He knew not that Leezibeth had altogether overcome her old dislike for the girl, and waited on her with an animal-like fondness and submissiveness. The Whaup took it for granted that these texts were chosen as a reproof and admonition—part of the old persecution; and so, without more ado, he opened the door brusquely, and walked in.

A strange scene met his eyes. Coquette, pale and death-like, lay on a sofa, with her large, dark eyes fixed wistfully on the fire. She evidently heard nothing. Leezibeth sat on a chair at the table, with a large Family Bible before her. There was no trace of a sick room in this hushed and warm apartment, in which the chief light was the red glow of the fire; and yet it was so silent, save for the low murmuring of these texts, and the girl looked so sad and so phantom-like, that a great chill laid hold of his heart. Had they been deceiving him in their letters?

CHAPTER XXIX.

COQUETTE'S DREAMS.

The Whaup went over to the sofa, and knelt down on one knee, and took Coquette's hand.

"Coquette," said he, forgetting to call her by any other name, "are you ill yet? Why are you so pale? Why did they tell me you were almost better?"

She was pale no longer. A quick flush of surprise and delight sprang to her face when she saw him enter; and there was a new life and pleasure in her eyes as she said rapidly:

"You are come all the way from Glasgow to see me? I was thinking of you, and trying to make a picture of Glasgow in the coal and flames of the fire; and I had begun to wonder when you would come back; and whether it would be a surprise—and—and—I did think I did hear something in the snow outside, and it was really you? And how well you look, Tom," she added, with her dark eyes full of a subtle tenderness and joy regarding the young man's handsome and glowing face; "and how big and strong you are; but, do you know, you seem to be a great deal older? You have been working very hard, Tom? Ah, I do know! And you have come to stay for a while? And what sort of a house have you been living in? And what sort of a place is Glasgow? Sit down on the hearthrug and tell me all about it!"

She spoke quite rapidly, and, in her gladness and excitement, she tried to raise herself up a bit. The Whaup instantly offered her his assistance, and propped up the cushions on which her head rested. But why did he not speak? He did not answer one of her questions. He looked at her in a vague and sad way, as if she were somehow remote, and she fancied she saw a tremor about his lips. Then he said suddenly, with a sharpness which startled her:

"Why was I not told? Why did they make light of it? What have they been doing to let you get as ill as this?"

He rose and turned with a frown on his face, as if to accuse Leezibeth of being the cause of the girl's illness. Leezibeth had quietly slipped out of the room.

"What does that woman mean by persecuting you with her texts?" he asked.

Coquette reached out her hand, and brought him down to his old position beside her.

"You must not say anything against Leesibess; she is my very good friend, and so kind that she does not know how to serve me. And you must not look angry like that, or I shall be afraid of you; you seem so much greater and older than you were, and I have no longer any control over you, as I did use to have when you were a boy, you know."

The Whaup laughed, and sat down on the hearthrug beside her. The fire heightened the warm glow of his face, and touched here and there the brown masses of curling hair; but it was clear that some firmness, and perhaps a touch of sadness had been added to the lad's expression during those few months he had been away from home. There was a gravity in his voice, too, which had replaced the buoyant carelessness of old.

"It is comfortable to be near one's own fire, and to see you again, Coquette," said he.

"It is miserable away in Glasgow?" she said. "This morning, when I saw the snow, I thought of you in the drear town, and did wonder what you were doing. It is Sunday, I said, he will go to church in the morning, and then he will go outside the town for a walk all by himself. He will go through the great gate, and under the big walls. All the trees on the side of the fortifications will be bare and heavy with snow; and the people that pass along the boulevards outside the walls will be muffled up and cold. In the gardens of the cafés the wooden benches will be wet and deserted. Then I see you walk twice round the town, and go in again by the gate. You go home, you have dinner, you take a book—perhaps it is the French Testament I gave you—and you think of us here at Airlie. And when you sit like that do you think of the sea, and the old church up here, and the moor; and do you see us as clearly as I can see you, and could you speak to me if only the words would carry?"

He listened as if he were listening to the record of a dream; and, strangely enough, it coincided with many a dream that he had dreamt by himself in the solitude of his Glasgow lodgings.

"What a curious notion of Glasgow you have," he said. "You seem to think it is like a French town. There are no fortifications. There are no walls, no boulevards round the place, nor public gardens with benches. There is a close network of streets in the middle, and these lose themselves, on the one side, in great masses of public works and chimneys that stretch out into dirty fields that are sodden with smoke, and, on the other side, into suburbs where the rich people have big houses. There is nothing in the way of ramparts, or moats, or fortifications; but there is a cannon in the West-End Park."

"There is a park, then? It is not all houses and chimneys?"

"There are two parks that let you see nearly down to Airlie. On the clear days I go up to the highest point and look away down here, and wonder if I could call to Coquette, and if she would hear."

"You do think of me sometimes, then?" said she, with the dark eyes grown wistful and a trifle sad.

Had he not thought of her! What was it that seemed to sweeten his life in the great and weary city but tender memories of the girl away down in that moorland nook? In the time of constant rain, when the skies were dark, and the roaring traffic of the streets ploughed its way through sludge and mud, he thought of one spot over which, in his imagination, there dwelt perpetual sunshine and a blue sky. When he was sick of the noise and the smoke—sick, too, of the loneliness of the great city—he could think of the girl far away, whose face was as pure and sweet as a lily in springtime; and the very memory of her seemed to lighten his dull little room, and bring a fragrance to it. Did not Airlie lie in the direction of the sunset? Many a time, when he had gone out from the town to the heights of Maryhill or Billhead, the cloudy and wintry afternoon broke into a fierce mass of fire away along the western horizon; and he loved to think that Coquette was catching that glare of yellow light, and that she was looking over the moor towards Arran and the sea. All the sweet influences of life hovered around Airlie; there seemed to be always sunshine there. And when he went back into the gloom of the city it was with a glad heart; for he had got a glimpse of the favoured land down in the west; and if you had been walking behind a tall and stalwart lad, whose shoulders were as flat as a board, and whose brown hair was in considerable profusion round a face that was full of courage, and hope, and health, you would have heard him sing, high over the roar of the carts and the carriages, the tune of "Drumclog"—heeding little whether any one was listening to his not very melodious voice.

"You must have been much worse than they told me," he said gravely.

"But I am getting very well now," said Coquette, with a smile, "and I am anxious to be quite better, for they did spoil me here. I do not like to be an invalid."

"No," said the Whaup, "I suppose you'd rather be scampering about like a wild pony over the moor, flinging snowballs, and shouting with laughter."

"I did not know that the wild pony was good at snowballs or at laughing," said Coquette. "But you have not told me anything about Glasgow. What you do there? Have you seen Lady Drum since she went away from here, after being very kind to me? How do you like the college?"

"All that is of no consequence," said the Whaup. "I did not come here to talk about myself. I came to see you, and find out for myself why you were remaining so long indoors."

"But I do desire you to talk about yourself," said Coquette, with something of her old imperiousness of manner.

"I shan't," said the Whaup. "I have grown older than you since I went to Glasgow, and I am not to be ordered about. Besides, Coquette, I haven't above half an hour more to stay."

"You do not go away to-day?" said Coquette, with alarm in her face.

"I go away in less than half an hour, or my father will be home. Not a human being must know that I have come to Airlie to-day. I mean to exact a solemn vow from Leezibeth."

"It is wicked—it is wrong," said Coquette.

"Why not say it is a beastly shame, as you used to do?" asked the Whaup.

"Because I have been reading much since I am ill, and have learned much English," said Coquette; and then she proceeded with her prayers and entreaties that he should remain at least over the day.

But the Whaup was inexorable. He had fulfilled the object of his mission; and would depart without anybody being a bit the wiser. He had seen Coquette again; had listened to her tender voice; and assured himself that she was really convalescent and in good spirits. So they chatted in the old familiar fashion—as if they were boy and girl together. But all the time Coquette was regarding him, and trying to say to herself what the inexpressible something was which had made a difference in the Whaup's manner. He was not downcast—on the contrary, he talked to her in the frank, cheerful, abrupt way which she knew of old; and yet there was a touch of determination, of seriousness, and decision which had been quite recently acquired. In the mere outward appearance of his face, too, was there not some alteration?

"Oh, Tom!" she cried, suddenly, "you have got whiskers."

"What if I have?" he said coolly. "Are you sorry, Miss Coquette, that nature has denied to woman that manly ornament?"—and he stroked with satisfaction the dusky golden down which was on his cheeks.

"I do believe," said Coquette, "you did come from Glasgow to show me your whiskers."

"You don't seem to admire them as much as you ought to," he remarked. "Yet there are many men would give something for these, though they are young as yet."

"Oh, you vain boy!" said Coquette. "I am ashamed of you. And your fashionable cuffs, too—you are not a proper student. You ought to be pale, and gloomy, with shabby clothes, and a hungry face. But you have no links in your cuffs, Tom," she added, rather shyly. "Would you let me—would you accept from me as a present a pair I have got?"

"And go back to college with a pair of girl's links in my sleeves!" said the Whaup.

"But they are quite the same," said Coquette. "It will give me great pleasure if you will take them."

She rang for Leezibeth, and bade her go up to her room and fetch those bits of jewellery; and when Leezibeth came back with them Coquette would herself put them in her cousin's sleeves—an operation which, from her recumbent position, she effected with a little difficulty. As the Whaup looked at these pretty ornaments—four small and dark-green cameos set in an old-fashioned circle of delicately twisted gold wire—he said—

"I wonder you have left yourself anything, Coquette. You are always giving away something or other. I think it is because you are so perfect and happy in yourself, that you don't need to care for anything else."

The girl's face flushed slightly with evident pleasure; but she said—

"If you do call me 'Coquette,' I will call you 'The Whaup.'"

"Who told you to call me that?"

"I have heard it often. Yet it is not fair. You are not any more a wild boy, but a student and a man. Neither am I 'Coquette.'"

Yet at this very moment the deceitful young creature was trying her best to make him forget the peril he was in. She knew that if the people returning from church were to find him in the house, his secret would be lost, and he would be forced to remain. So she talked and questioned him without ceasing, and had made him altogether forget that time was passing rapidly, when suddenly there was a noise somewhere.

"By Jove!" said the Whaup, "they have come back. I must bolt out by the garden and get over the wall. Good-bye, Coquette—get well soon, and come up to see me in Glasgow!"

He darted out, and met Leezibeth in the passage. He had only time to adjure her not to say he had been there, and then he got quickly through to the back-door. In rushing forth he fairly ran against his brother Wattie, and unintentionally sent him flying into an immense heap of soft snow which Andrew had swept along the path; but the Whaup did not pause to look at his brother wriggling out, blinded and bewildered, from the snowdrift. He dashed through the garden, took hold of a pear-tree, clambered on to the wall, and dropped into the snow-covered meadow outside. He had escaped.

But Wattie, when he came to himself, was struck with a great fear. He ran into the house, and into the parlour, almost speechless between sobbing and terror, as he blurted out—

"Oh, Leezibeth! oh, Leezibeth! the deil has been in the house. It was the deil himsel'—and he was fleeing out at the back-door—and he flung me into the snaw—and then gaed up into the air, wi' a crack like thunder. It was the deil himsel', Leezibeth—what'll I dae? what'll I dae?"

"Havers, havers, havers," cried Leezibeth, taking him by the shoulders, and bundling him out of the room, "do ye think the deil would meddle wi' you? Gang butt the house, and take the snaw off your claithes, and let the deil alane! Ma certes—a pretty pass if we are to be frightened out o' our senses because a laddie tumbles in the snaw!"