“Very well, sir.”

“And you will not send the boat out to the Pioneer till I give you a letter; and you will ask the clerk to be so kind as to post it for me to-night at Oban; and he must not forget that.”

“Very well, sir,” said Hamish; and he left the room, with a determined look about his lips, but with a glad light in his eyes.

This was the second letter that Macleod wrote; and he had to keep whispering to himself “Caution! caution!” or he would have broken into some wild appeal to his sweetheart far away.

“DEAR GERTRUDE,” he wrote, “I gather from your note that it is true you are going to be married.  I had heard some time ago, so your letter was no great shock to me; and what I have suffered—­well, that can be of no interest to you now, and it will do me no good to recall it.  As to your message, I would forgive you freely; but how can I forget?  Can you forget?  Do you remember the red rose?  But that is all over now, I suppose; and I should not wonder if I were after all, to be able to obey you, and to forget very thoroughly—­not that alone, but everything else.  For I have been rather ill of late—­more through sleeplessness than any other cause, I think; and they say I must go for a long sea-voyage; and the mother and Janet both say I should be more at home in the old Umpire, with Hamish and Christina, and my own people round me, than in a steamer; and so I may not hear of you again until you are separated from me forever.  But I write now to ask you if you would like your letters returned, and one or two keepsakes, and the photographs.  I would not like them to fall into other hands; and sometimes I feel so sick at heart that I doubt whether I shall ever again get back to Dare.  There are some flowers, too; but I would ask to be allowed to keep them, if you have no objection; and the sketch of Ulva, that you made on the deck of the Umpire, when we were coming back from Iona, I would like to keep that, if you have no objection.  And I remain your faithful friend,

“KEITH MACLEOD.”

Now, at the moment he was writing this letter, Lady Macleod and her niece were together; the old lady at her spinning-wheel, the younger one sewing; and Janet Macleod was saying,—­

“Oh, auntie, I am so glad Keith is going away now in the yacht! and you must not be vexed at all or troubled if he stays a long time; for what else can make him well again?  Why, you know that he has not been Keith at all of late,—­he is quite another man—­I do not think any one would recognize him.  And surely there can be no better cure for sleeplessness than the rough work of the yachting; and you know Keith will take his share, in despite of Hamish; and if he goes away to the South, they will have watches, and he will take his watch with the others, and his turn at the helm.  Oh, you will see the change when he comes back to us!”

The old lady’s eyes had slowly filled with tears.