And then the return to the cold window, with the constant rain and the beating of the white surge on the black rocks.  The imprisonment became torture—­became maddening.  What if he were suddenly to murder this old man and stop forever his insufferable prosing about Bernada Siena and Andrea Mantegna?  It seemed so strange to hear him talk of the unearthly calm of Raphael’s “St. Michael”—­of the beautiful, still landscape of it, and the mysterious joy on the face of the angel—­and to listen at the same moment to the wild roar of the Atlantic around the rocks of Mull.  If Macleod had been alone with the talker, he might have gone to sleep.  It was like the tolling of a bell.  “The artist passes away, but he leaves his soul behind....  We can judge by his work of the joy he must have experienced in creation, of the splendid dreams that have visited him, of the triumph of completion....  Life without an object—­a pursuit demanding the sacrifice of our constant care—­what is it?  The existence of a pig is nobler—­a pig is of some use....  We are independent of weather in a great city; we do not need to care for the seasons; you take a hansom and drive to the National Gallery, and there all at once you find yourself in the soft Italian climate, with the most beautiful women and great heroes of chivalry all around you, and with those quaint and loving presentations of sacred stories that tell of a time when art was proud to be the meek handmaid of religion.  Oh, my dear Lady Macleod, there is a ‘Holy Family’ of Giotto’s—­”

So it went on; and Macleod grew sick at heart to think of the impression that this funereal day must have had on the mind of his fair stranger.  But as they sat at dinner that evening, Hamish came in and said a few words to his master.  Instantly Macleod’s face lighted up, and quite a new animation came into his manner.

“Do you know what Hamish says?” he cried—­“that the night is quite fine?  And Hamish has heard our talking of seeing the cathedral at Iona by moonlight, and he says the moon will be up by ten.  And what do you say to running over now?  You know we cannot take you in the yacht, for there is no good anchorage at Iona; but we can take you in a very good and safe boat; and it will be an adventure to go out in the night-time.”

It was an adventure that neither Mr. White nor his daughter seemed too eager to undertake; but the urgent vehemence of the young man—­who had discovered that it was a fine and clear starlit night—­soon overcame their doubts and there was a general hurry of preparation.  The desolation of the day, he eagerly thought, would be forgotten in the romance of this night excursion.  And surely she would be charmed by the beauty of the starlit sky, and the loneliness of the voyage, and their wandering over the ruins in the solemn moonlight?