men going out to the lobster-traps.  The yellow light on the glassy plain waxes stronger; new objects appear through the shifting fog; until at last a sudden opening shows him a wonderful thing far away—­apparently at the very confines of the world—­and awful in its solitary splendor.  For that is the distant island of Staffa, and it has caught the colors of the dawn; and amidst the cold grays of the sea it shines a pale, transparent rose.

He would like to have sent her, if he 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 seemed so hateful to her?