Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself.  The sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning.  It was my first thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon her body, seemed in the nature of a cruelty.  There was a corner cupboard in that chamber; there I determined to bestow them.  The which I did and made it a long business, folding them with very little skill indeed but the more care; and sometimes dropping them with my tears.  All the heart was gone out of me, I was weary as though I had run miles, and sore like one beaten; when, as I was folding a kerchief that she wore often at her neck, I observed there was a corner neatly cut from it.  It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I had frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered telling her (by way of a banter) that she wore my colours.  There came a glow of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and the next moment I was plunged back in a fresh despair.  For there was the corner crumpled in a knot and cast down by itself in another part of the floor.

But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful.  She had cut that corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that she had cast it away again was little to be wondered at; and I was inclined to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be more pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, than concerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural resentment.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIX

WE MEET IN DUNKIRK

Altogether, then, I was scarce so miserable the next days but what I had many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means of James More.  I had altogether three letters in the time of our separation.  One was to announce their arrival in the town of Dunkirk in France, from which place James shortly after started alone upon a private mission.  This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges of the same.  But he has need of a long spoon who sups with the deil, or James More either.  During this absence, the time was to fall due for another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his stipend, he had been so careful as prepare it beforehand and leave it with Catriona to be despatched.  The fact of our correspondence aroused her suspicions, and he was no sooner gone than she had burst the seal.  What I received began accordingly in the writing of James More: