arts that love us, and where my father is and friends are to be made,
I think I can be happy yet. Look at the waves there, and the snow and
the sea-birds! All these are in other places as well as here."

"But not the same, but not the same! Here I swear I could live content
myself."

"What!" said she, smiling, and the rogue a moment dancing in her eyes.
"No, no, Count Victor, to this you must be born like the stag in the
corrie and the seal on the rock. We are a simple people, and a poor
people--worse fortune!--poor and proud. Your world is different from
ours, and there you will have friends that think of you."

"And you," said he, all aglow in passion but with a face of flint, "you
are leaving those behind that love you too."

This time he watched her narrowly; she gave no sign.

"There are the poor people in the clachan there," said she; "some of
them will not forget me I am hoping, but that is all. We go. It is good
for us, perhaps. Something has been long troubling my father more than
the degradation of the clans and all these law pleas that Petullo has
now brought to the bitter end. He is proud, and he is what is common in
the Highlands when the heart is sore--he is silent. You must not think
it is for myself I am vexing to leave Doom Castle; it is for him. Look!
do you see the dark spot on the side of the hill yonder up at Ardno?
That is the yew-tree in the churchyard where my mother, his wife, lies;
it is no wonder that at night sometimes he goes out to look at the
hills, for the hills are over her there and over the generations of his
people in the same place. I never knew my mother, _mothruaigh!_ but he
remembers, and it is the hundred dolours (as we say) for him to part.
For me I have something of the grandfather in me, and would take the
seven bens for it, and the seven glens, and the seven mountain moors, if
it was only for the sake of the adventure, though I should always like
to think that I would come again to these places of hered-ity."

And through all this never a hint of Simon Mac-Taggart! Could there be
any other conclusion than the joyous one--it made his heart bound!--that
that affair was at an end? And yet how should he ascertain the truth
about a matter so close upon his heart? He put his pride in his pocket
and went down that afternoon with the Chamberlain's coat in his hands.
There was a lull in the wind, and the servitor was out of doors caulking
the little boat, the argosy of poor fortu