should have been plunged into the darkest woe
and have almost sobbed myself to death. Why did I not? I do not know
except--except that I felt that no darkness could come between us
because no darkness could touch him. He could never be anything but
alive alive. If I could not see him it would only be because my eyes
were not clear and strong enough. I seemed to be waiting for something.
I wanted to keep near him.

I was full of this feeling as we sat together on the terrace and watched
the moon. I could scarcely look away from him. He was rather pale that
evening, but there seemed to be a light behind his pallor, and his eyes
seemed to see so much more than the purple and yellow of the heather and
gorse as they rested on them.

After I had watched him silently for a little while I leaned forward and
pointed to a part of the moor where there was an unbroken blaze of gorse
in full bloom like a big patch of gold.

"That is where I was sitting when Wee Brown Elspeth was first brought to
me," I said.

He sat upright and looked. "Is it?" he answered. "Will you take me there
to-morrow? I have always wanted to see the place."

"Would you like to go early in the morning? The mist is more likely to
be there then, as it was that day. It is so mysterious and beautiful.
Would you like to do that?" I asked him.

"Better than anything else!" he said. "Yes, let us go in the morning."

"Wee Brown Elspeth seems very near me this evening," I said. "I feel as
if--" I broke off and began again. "I have a puzzled feeling about her.
This afternoon I found some manuscript pushed behind a book on a high
shelf in the library. Angus said he had hidden it there because it was a
savage story he did not wish me to read. It was the history of the feud
between Ian Red Hand and Dark Malcolm of the Glen. Dark Malcolm's child
was called Wee Brown Elspeth hundreds of years ago--five hundred, I
think. It makes me feel so bewildered when I remember the one I played
with."

"It was a bloody story," he said. "I heard it only a few days before we
met at Sir Ian's house in London."

That made me recall something.

"Was that why you started when I told you about Elspeth?" I asked.

"Yes. Perhaps the one you played with was a little descendant who had
inherited her name," he answered, a trifle hurriedly. "I confess I was
startled for a moment."

I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it unconsciously. I could not
help seeing a woesome picture.