, and clattered down the slope.

A cluster of white-stemmed birches just ahead of them caught whatever
light was still left in the atmosphere, their feathery tops bending and
swaying against the sky.

'How easily, with mind attuned, one could people this whole path with
ghosts!' said Robert. 'Look at those stems, and that line of stream
coming down to the right, and listen to the wind among the fern.'

For they were passing a little gully deep in bracken, up which the blast
was tearing its tempestuous way.

Catherine shivered a little, and the sense of physical exhaustion, which
had been banished like everything else--doubt, humiliation,
bitterness--by the one fact of his presence, came back on her.

'There _is_ something rather awful in this dark and storm,' she said,
and paused.

'Would you have faced it alone?' he asked, his voice thrilling her with
a hundred different meanings. 'I am glad I prevented it.'

'I have no fear of the mountains,' she said, trembling. 'I know them,
and they me.'

'But you are tired--your voice is tired--and the walk might have been
more of an effort than you thought it. Do you never think of yourself?'

'Oh dear, yes,' said Catherine, trying to smile, and could find nothing
else to say. They walked on a few moments in silence, splashes of rain
breaking in their faces. Robert's inward excitement was growing fast.
Suddenly Catherine's pulse stood still. She felt her hand lifted, drawn
within his arm, covered close with his warm trembling clasp.

'Catherine, let it stay there. Listen one moment. You gave me a hard
lesson yesterday, too hard--I cannot learn it--I am bold--I claim you.
Be my wife. Help me through this difficult world. I have loved you from
the first moment. Come to me. Be kind to me.'

She could hardly see his face, but she could feel the passion in his
voice and touch. Her cheek seemed to droop against his arm. He felt her
tottering.

'Let me sit down,' she said; and after one moment of dizzy silence he
guided her to a rock, sinking down himself beside her, longing, but not
daring, to shelter her under his broad Inverness cloak against the
storm.

'I told you,' she said, almost whispering, 'that I was bound, tied to
others.'

'I do not admit your plea,' he said passionately; 'no, not for a moment.
For two days have I been tramping over the mountains thinking it out for
yourself and me. Catherine, your mother has no son--she should find one
in me. I have no si