words might be. _If only he
could see her again:_ all his wild hopes, and fears, and doubts--all his
vague fancies and imaginings--began to narrow themselves down to this
one point; and this immediate desire became all-consuming. He grew sick
at heart when he looked round and considered how vain was the wish.

The gladness had gone from the face of Keith Macleod. Not many months
before, any one would have imagined that the life of this handsome young
fellow, whose strength, and courage, and high spirits seemed to render
him insensible to any obstacle, had everything in it that the mind of
man could desire. He had a hundred interests and activities; he had
youth and health, and a comely presence; he was on good terms with
everybody around him--for he had a smile and a cheerful word for each
one he met, gentle or simple. All this gay, glad life seemed to have
fled. The watchful Hamish was the first to notice that his master began
to take less and less interest in the shooting and boating and fishing;
and at times the old man was surprised and disturbed by an exhibition of
querulous impatience that had certainly never before been one of
Macleod's failings. Then his cousin Janet saw that he was silent and
absorbed; and his mother inquired once or twice why he did not ask one
or other of his neighbors to come over to Dare to have a day's shooting
with him.

"I think you are finding the place lonely, Keith, now that Norman
Ogilvie is gone," said she.

"Ah, mother," he said, with a laugh, "it is not Norman Ogilvie, it is
London, that has poisoned my mind. I should never have gone to the
South. I am hungering for the fleshpots of Egypt already; and I am
afraid some day I will have to come and ask you to let me go away
again."

He spoke jestingly, and yet he was regarding his mother.

"I know it is not pleasant for a young man to be kept fretting at home,"
said she. "But it is not long now I will ask you to do that, Keith."

Of course this brief speech only drove him into more vigorous
demonstration that he was not fretting at all; and for a time he seemed
more engrossed than ever in all the occupations he had but recently
abandoned. But whether he was on the hillside, or down in the glen, or
out among the islands, or whether he was trying to satisfy the hunger of
his heart with books long after every one in Castle Dare had gone to
bed, he could not escape from this gnawing and torturing anxiety. It was
no beautiful and