if he was a scholar, sitting late in the old keep over great books,
that harmed no one, redounded, indeed, to the dale's credit. His very
wanderings might so redound now that they were over. "That's the laird
of Glenfernie," the dale might say to strangers.

It was dim, gray, late November weather. There poured rain, shrieked
a wind. Then the sky cleared and the air stilled. There came three
wonderful days, one after the other, and between them wonderful nights
with a waxing moon. Alexander, riding home from Littlefarm, found
waiting for him in the court Peter Lindsay, of Black Hill. This was a
trusted man.

"I hae a bit letter frae Mistress Alison, laird." Giving it to him,
Peter came close, his eye upon the approaching stable-boy. "Dinna look
at it here, but when ye're alone. I'll bide and tak the answer."

Alexander nodded, turned, and crossed to the keep. Within its ancient,
deep entrance he broke seal and opened the paper superscribed by Mrs.
Alison. Within was not her handwriting. There ran but two lines, in a
hand with which he was well acquainted:

"_Will you meet one that you know in the cave to-night four hours
after moonrise?_"

He went back to the messenger. "The answer is, 'Yes.' Say just that,
Peter Lindsay."

The day went by. He worked with Strickland. The latter thought him a
little absent, but the accounts were checked and decisions made. At
the supper-table he was more quiet than usual.

"Full moon to-night," said Alice. "What does it look like, Alexander,
when it shines in Rome and when it comes up right out of the desert?"

"It lights the ruins and it is pale day in the desert. What makes you
think to-night of Rome and the desert?"

"I do not know. I see the rim now out of window."

The moon climbed. It shone with an intense silver behind leafless
boughs and behind the dark-clad boughs of firs. It came above the
trees. The night hung windless and deeply clear. A fire burned upon
the hearth of the room in the keep. Alexander sat before it and he sat
very still, and vast pictures came to the inner eye, and to the inner
ear meanings of old words....

He rose at last, took a cloak, and went down the stone stair into a
night cold, still, and bright. The path by the school-house, the
hand's-breadth of silvered earth, the broken, silvered wall, the pine,
the rough descent.... He went through the dark wood where the shining
fell broken like a shattered mirror. Beyond held open country until he