looked like her mother; how much, to-night, Alexander looked
like her.

They talked until late. They came to agreement, quiet, moved, but
thorough. Glenfernie rose. He took Alice in his arms and kissed her
thrice. Moisture was in the eyes of both.

"Sleep, dear, sleep! So we understand, things grow easy!"

"I think that you are right, and that is a long way to comfort," said
Alice. "Good night, good night, Alexander!"

When she was gone the two men talked yet a little longer, over the
dying fire. Then they, too, wished each other good night. Strickland
went to his room, but Alexander left the house and crossed the
moon-filled night to the keep. It was now he and Ian.

There was no strain. "Old Steadfast" and "Old Saracen," and a long
pilgrimage together, and every difference granted, yet, in the
background, a vast, an oceanic unity.... Ian rose from the settle. He
and the laird of Glenfernie sat by the table and with pen and paper
made a diagram of escape. They bent to the task in hand, and when it
was done, and a few more words had been said, they turned to the
pallets which Davie had spread on either side of the hearth. The moon
and the low fire made a strange half-light in the room. The two lay
still, addressed to sleep. They spoke and answered but once.

Said Ian: "I felt just then the waves of the sea!--The waves of the
sea and the roads of France.... The waves and roads of the days and
nights and months and years. I there and you here. There is an ether,
doubtless, that links, but I don't tread it firmly.... Be sure I'll
turn to you, call to you, often, over the long roads, from out of the
trough of the waves! _Senor Nobody! Senor Nobody!_" He laughed, but
with a catch of the breath. "Good night!"

"Good night, Old Saracen!" said Alexander.

Morn came. That day Glenfernie House heard still that all that region
was searched. The day went by, short, gray, with flurries of snow. By
afternoon it settled to a great, down-drifting pall of white. It was
falling thick and fast when Alexander Jardine and Ian Rullock passed
through the broken wall beyond the school-room. The pine branches were
whitening, the narrow, rugged path ran a zigzag of white.

Strickland had parted from them at the wall, and yet Strickland seemed
to be upon the path, following Glenfernie. Ian wore a dress of
Strickland's, a hat and cloak that the countryside knew. He and
Strickland were nearly of a height. Keeping silence and moving throug