lity and Gentry of Edinburgh and the
neighbourhood----"

The shock of it--the sudden descent upon sublimity, according to
Byfleld--took me in the face. I put up my hands. I broke into elfish
laughter, and ended with a sob. Sobs and laughter together shook my
fasting body like a leaf; and I zigzagged across the fields, buffeted
this side and that by a mirth as uncontrollable as it was idiotic. Once
I pulled up in the middle of a spasm to marvel irresponsibly at the
sound of my own voice. You may wonder that I had will and wit to be
drifted towards Flora's trysting-place. But in truth there was no
missing it--the low chine looming through the weather, the line of firs
topping it, and, towards the west, diminishing like a fish's dorsal fin.
I had conned it often enough from the other side; had looked right
across it on the day when she stood beside me on the bastion and pointed
out the smoke of Swanston Cottage. Only on this side the fish-tail (so
to speak) had a nick in it; and through that nick ran the path to the
old quarry.

I reached it a little before eight. The quarry lay to the left of the
path, which passed on and out upon the hill's northern slope. Upon that
slope there was no need to show myself. I measured out some fifty yards
of the path, and paced it to and fro, idly counting my steps; for the
chill crept back into my bones if I halted for a minute. Once or twice I
turned aside into the quarry, and stood there tracing the veins in the
hewn rock: then back to my quarter-deck tramp and the study of my watch.
Ten minutes past eight! Fool--to expect her to cheat so many spies. This
hunger of mine was becoming serious....

A stone dislodged--a light footfall on the path--and my heart leapt. It
was she! She came, and earth flowered again, as beneath the feet of the
goddess, her namesake. I declare it for a fact that from the moment of
her coming the weather began to mend.

"Flora!"

"My poor Anne!"

"The shawl has been useful," said I.

"You are starving."

"That is unpleasantly near the truth."

"I knew it. See, dear." A shawl of hodden grey covered her head and
shoulders, and from beneath it she produced a small basket and held it
up. "The scones will be hot yet, for they went straight from the hearth
into the napkin."

She led the way to the quarry. I praised her forethought; having in
those days still to learn that woman's first instinct, when a man is
dear to her and in trouble, is to feed hi