later, on that day. The
post to the south went out on the next day; and the early hour of the
morning at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matter
of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of my
hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under my
dictation: she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I relied
as usual on her help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, was
simply a question of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an
imperative duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be.

The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never
appeared.

I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in the
garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I might be
found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild place, to my
southern notions; but it extended for some distance along the shore
of the island, and it offered some pleasant views of the lake and the
moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to myself
to occupy my mind to some useful purpose by arranging beforehand the
composition of the letter which Miss Dunross was to write.

To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind on
the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering from
the letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead--on Miss
Dunross? No. On the question of my returning, or not returning, to
Perthshire by the Government vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of
feeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now
absorbed on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent
from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt!

My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will, to my
last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her again. I tasted
once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss; I felt once more the
pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had parted with her and found myself
alone in the street. Tears--of which I was ashamed, though nobody was
near to see them--filled my eyes when I thought of the months that had
passed since we had last looked on one another, and of all that she
might have suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on
hundreds of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if
she were walking in the garden by my side!

This strange condition of my min