this moment when the hills inspired. "Silence,
thought, calm, and purity, here they are!" they seemed to tell him, and
by no means unattainable. Where (now that he had time to think of it)
could he possibly go to-night but to the shelter of Doom? Let the morrow
decide for itself. _A demain les affaires serieuses!_ Doom and--Olivia.
What eyes she had, that girl! They might look upon the assailant of her
wretched lover with anything but favour; yet even in anger they were
more to him than those of all the world else in love.

Be sure Count Victor was not standing all the time of these reflections
shivering in the snow. He had not indulged a moment's hesitation since
ever he had come out upon the bay, and he walked through the night as
fast as his miserable shoes would let him.

The miles passed, he crossed the rivers that mourned through hollow
arches and spread out in brackish pools along the shore. Curlews piped
dolorously the very psalm of solitude, and when he passed among
the hazel-woods of Strone and Achnatra, their dark recesses belled
continually with owls. It was the very pick of a lover's road: no
outward vision but the sombre masses of the night, the valleys of snow,
and the serene majestic hills to accompany that inner sight of the
woman; no sounds but that of solemn waters and the forest creatures to
make the memory of her words the sweeter. A road for lovers, and he
was the second of the week, though he did not know it. Only, Simon
MacTaggart had come up hot-foot on his horse, a trampling conqueror (as
he fancied), the Count trudged shamefully undignified through snow
that came high upon the silken stockings, and long ago had made his
dancing-shoes shapeless and sodden. But he did not mind that; he had a
goal to make for, an ideal to cherish timidly; once or twice he found
himself with some surprise humming Gringoire's song, that surely should
never go but with a light heart.

And in the fulness of time he approached the point of land from which he
knew he could first see Doom's dark promontory if it were day. There his
steps slowed. Somehow it seemed as if all his future fortune depended
upon whether or not a light shone through the dark to greet him. Between
him and the sea rolling in upon a spit of the land there was--of all
things!--a herd of deer dimly to be witnessed running back and forward
on the sand as in some confusion at his approach; at another time the
thing should have struck him with amazem