e had got any skill of the brush,
some brief memorandum of that beautiful thing; but indeed, and in any
case, that was not the sort of painting she seemed to care for just
then. Mr. Lemuel, and his Palace of Art, and his mediaeval saints, and
what not, which had all for a time disappeared from Miss White's
letters, began now to monopolize a good deal of space there; and there
was no longer any impertinent playfulness in her references, but, on the
contrary, a respect and admiration that occasionally almost touched
enthusiasm. From hints more than statements Macleod gathered that Miss
White had been made much of by the people frequenting Mr. Lemuel's
house. She had there met one or two gentlemen who had written very fine
things about her in the papers; and certain highly distinguished people
had been good enough to send her cards of invitation; and she had once
or twice been persuaded to read some piece of dramatic poetry at Mr.
Lemuel's afternoon parties; and she even suggested that Mr. Lemuel had
almost as much as said that he would like to paint her portrait. Mr.
Lemuel had also offered her, but she had refused to accept, a small but
marvellous study by Pinturicchio, which most people considered the gem
of his collection.

Macleod, reading and re-reading these letters many a time in the
solitudes of western Mull, came to the opinion that there must be a good
deal of amusement going on in London. And was it not natural that a
young girl should like to be petted, and flattered, and made much of?
Why should he complain when she wrote to say how she enjoyed this and
was charmed by that? Could he ask her to exchange that gay and pleasant
life for this hibernation in Mull? Sometimes for days together the
inhabitants of Castle Dare literally lived in the clouds. Dense bands of
white mist lay all along the cliffs; and they lived in a semi-darkness,
with the mournful dripping of the rain on the wet garden, and the
mournful wash of the sea all around the shores. He was glad, then, that
Gertrude White was not at Castle Dare.

But sometimes, when he could not forbear opening his heart to her, and
pressing her for some more definite assurance as to the future, the
ordinary playful banter in which she generally evaded his urgency gave
place to a tone of coldness that astonished and alarmed him. Why should
she so cruelly resent this piteous longing of his? Was she no longer,
then, so anxious to escape from the thraldom that had see