“Not bad news of Jamie!”

“Not of Jamie!  From Jamie.”  He thrust the letter under the other’s eyes.  “Read—­read it out!”

Strickland read aloud.

“Here is authoritative news.  Ian Rullock, after lying two months in the tolbooth, has escaped.  A gaoler connived, it is supposed, else it would seem impossible.  Galbraith tells me he would certainly have been hanged in September.  It is thought that he got to Leith and on board a ship.  Three cleared that day—­for Rotterdam, for Lisbon, and Virginia.”

Alexander took the letter again.  “That is all of that import.”  Strickland once more felt astonishment.  Glenfernie’s tone was quiet, almost matter-of-fact.  The blood had ebbed from his face; he sat there collected, a great quiet on the heels of storm.  It was impossible not to admire the power that could with such swiftness exercise control.  Strickland hesitated.  He wished to speak, but did not know how far he might with wisdom.  The laird forestalled him.

“Sit down!  This is to be talked over, for again my course of life alters.”

Strickland took his chair.  He leaned his arm upon the table, his chin upon his hand.  He did not look directly at the man opposite, but at the bowl of flowers between them.

“When a man has had joy and lost it, what does he do?” Glenfernie’s voice was almost contemplative.

“One man one thing, and one another,” said Strickland.  “After his nature.”

“No.  All go seeking it in the teeth of death and horror.  That’s universal!  Joy must be sought.  But it may not wear the old face; it may wear another.”

“I suppose that true joy has one face.”

“When one platonizes—­perhaps!  I keep to-day to earth, to the cave.  Do you know,” said Alexander, “why I sit here wounded?”

“Of outward facts I do not know any more than is, I think, pretty generally known through this countryside.”

“As—?”

Strickland looked still at the bowl of flowers.  “It is known, I think, that you loved Elspeth Barrow and would have wedded her.  And that, while you were from home, the man who called himself, and was called by you, your nearest friend, stepped before you—­made love to her, betrayed her—­and left her to bear the shame....  I myself know that he kept you in ignorance, and that, away from here, he let you still write to him in friendship and answered in that tone....  All know that she drowned herself because of him, and that you knew naught until you yourself entered the Kelpie’s Pool and found her body and carried her home....  After that you left the country to find and fight Ian Rullock.  Folk know, too, that he evaded you then.  You returned.  Then came this insurrection, and news that he was in Scotland with the Pretender.  You joined the King’s forces.  Then, after Culloden, you found the false friend in hiding, in the mountains.  The two of you fought, and, as is often the way, the injurer seemed again to win.  You were dangerously wounded.  He fled.  Soldiers upon his track found you lying in your blood.  You were carried to Inverness.  Dickson and I went to you, brought you at last home.  In the mean time came news that the man you fought had been taken by the soldiers.  I suppose that we have all had visions of him, in prison, expecting to suffer with other conspirators.”