arnest. The passion that he has for his art, and his
patience and concentration and self-sacrifice, seems to me to be nothing
less than noble. And so, dear Keith, will you please to burn that
impertinent letter?"

Macleod sought out the letter and carefully read it over. He came to the
conclusion that he could see no just reason for complying with her
demand. Frequently first impressions are best.

CHAPTER XXX.

A GRAVE.

In the by-gone days, this eager, active, stout-limbed young fellow had
met the hardest winter with a glad heart. He rejoiced in its thousand
various pursuits; he set his teeth against the driving hail; he laughed
at the drenching spray that sprung high over the bows of his boat; and
what harm ever came to him if he took the short-cut across the upper
reaches of Loch Scridain, wading waist-deep through a mile of sea-water
on a bitter January day? And where was the loneliness of his life when
always, wherever he went by sea or shore, he had these old friends
around him--the red-beaked sea-pyots whirring along the rocks; and the
startled curlews, whistling their warning note across the sea; and the
shy duck swimming far out on the smooth lochs; to say nothing of the
black game that would scarcely move from their perch on the larch-trees
as he approached, and the deer that were more distinctly visible on the
far heights of Ben-an-Sloich when a slight sprinkling of snow had
fallen?

But now all this was changed. The awfulness of the dark winter-time
amidst those Northern seas overshadowed him. "It is like going into a
grave," he had said to her. And, with all his passionate longing to see
her and have speech of her once more, how could he dare to ask her to
approach these dismal solitudes? Sometimes he tried to picture her
coming, and to read in imagination the look on her face. See now!--how
she clings terrified to the side of the big open packet-boat that
crosses the Frith of Lorn, and she dares not look abroad on the howling
waste of waves. The mountains of Mull rise sad and cold and distant
before her; there is no bright glint of sunshine to herald her approach.
This small dog-cart, now: it is a frail thing with which to plunge into
the wild valleys, for surely a gust of wind might whirl into the chasm
of roaring waters below Glen-More: who that has ever seen Glen-More on a
lowering January day will ever forget it--its silence, its loneliness,
its vast and lifeless gloom? Her face is pale