ucceeded by a bright afternoon
that deepened into a clear and brilliant sunset; but as they went up
through the moist-smelling larch-wood--and as Janet happened to fall
behind for a moment, to speak to a herdboy who was by the
wayside--Macleod said to his companion,--

"And have you no other word for me, Gertrude?"

Then she said with a very gracious smile,

"You must be patient, Keith. Are we not very well off as we are? I know
a good many people who are not quite so well off. And I have no doubt we
shall have courage to meet whatever good or bad fortune the days may
bring us; and if it is good, then we shall shake hands over it, just as
the village people do in an opera."

Fine phrases; though this man, with the dark and hopeless look in his
eyes, did not seem to gain much gladness from them. And she forgot to
tell him about that engagement which was to last till Christmas; perhaps
if she had told him just then he would scarcely have heard her.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE NEW TRAGEDY.

His generous, large nature fought hard to find excuses for her. He
strove to convince himself that this strange coldness, this evasion,
this half-repellent attitude, was but a form of maiden coyness. It was
her natural fear of so great a change. It was the result, perhaps, of
some last lingering look back to the scene of her artistic triumphs. It
did not even occur to him as a possibility that this woman with her
unstable sympathies and her fatally facile imagination, should have
taken up what was now the very end and aim of his life, and have played
with the pretty dream until she grew tired of the toy, and was ready to
let her wandering fancy turn to something other and new.

He dared not even think of that; but all the same, as he stood at this
open window alone, an unknown fear had come over him. It was a fear
altogether vague and undefined; but it seemed to have the power of
darkening the daylight around him. Here was the very picture he had so
often desired that she should see--the wind-swept Atlantic; the glad
blue skies with their drifting clouds of summer white; the Erisgeir
rocks; the green shores of Ulva; and Colonsay and Gometra and Staffa all
shining in the sunlight; with the sea-birds calling, and the waves
breaking, and the soft west wind stirring the fuchsia-bushes below the
windows of Castle Dare. And it was all dark now; and the sea was a
lonely thing--more lonely than ever it had been even during that long