, without compunction, a thought
colorless and simple, as of one whom she had known and liked a long
time ago. Indeed, it might be said that she had little here with which
to reproach herself. She had been honest--had not said "Take!" where
she could not fulfil.... And now the laird of Glenfernie was like a
form met long ago--long ago! It seemed so long and far away that she
could not even think of him as suffering. As she might leave a
fugitive memory, so she turned her mind from him.

Ian thought of Alexander ... but he looked, by the lightning's lamp,
at the woman opposite.

She was not the first that he had desired, but he desired now with
unwonted strength. He did not know why--he did not analyze himself nor
the situation--but all the others seemed gathered up in her. She was
fair to him, desirable!... He thirsted, quite with the mortal honesty
of an Arab, day and night and day again without drink in the desert,
and the oasis palms seen at last on the horizon. In his self-direction
thitherward he was as candid, one-pointed, and ruthless as the Arab
might be. He had no deliberate thought of harm to the woman before
him--as little as the Arab would have of hurting the well whose cool
wave seemed to like the lip touch. Perhaps he as little stopped to
reason as would have done the Arab. Perhaps he had no thought of
deeply injuring a friend. If there were two desert-traversers, or more
than two, making for the well, friendship would not hold one back,
push another forward. Race!--and if the well was but to one, then let
fate and Allah approve the swiftest! Under such circumstances would
not Alexander outdo him if he might? He was willing to believe so.
Glenfernie said himself that the girl did not know if she cared for
him. If, then, the well was not for him, anyway?... _Where was the
wrong?_ Now Ian believed in his own power and easy might and
pleasantness and, on the whole, goodness--believed, too, in the love
of Alexander for him, love that he had tried before, and it held. _And
if he made love to Elspeth Barrow need old Steadfast ever know it?_
And, finally, and perhaps, unacknowledged to himself, from the first,
he turned to that cabinet of his heart where was the vial made of
pride, that held the drop of malice. The storm continued. They looked
through the portcullis made by the briers upon a world of rain. The
lightning flashed, the thunder rolled; in here was the castle hold,
dim and safe. They were as alone a