“Let us strike a truce!”—­he said—­“I promise not to try and ‘draw’ you any more!  But please do not isolate yourself from us,—­try to feel that we are your friends.  I want you to enjoy this trip if possible,—­but I fear that we are proving rather dull company for you.  We are making for Skye at good speed and shall probably anchor in Loch Scavaig to-night.  To-morrow we might land and do the excursion to Loch Coruisk if you care for that, though Catherine is not a good walker.”

I felt rather remorseful as he said these words in a kindly tone.  Yet I knew very well that, notwithstanding all the strenuous efforts which might be made by the rules of conventional courtesy, it would be impossible for me to feel quite at home in the surroundings which he had created for himself.  I inwardly resolved, however, to make the best of it and to try and steer clear of any possibilities or incidents which might tend to draw the line of demarcation too strongly between us.  Some instinct told me that present conditions were not to remain as they were, so I answered my host gently and assured him of my entire willingness to fall in with any of his plans.  Our conversation then gradually drifted into ordinary topics till towards sunset, when I went down to my cabin to dress for dinner.  I had a fancy to wear the bunch of pink bell-heather that still kept its fresh and waxen-looking delicacy of bloom, and this, fastened in the lace of my white gown, was my only adornment.

That night there was a distinct attempt on everybody’s part to make things sociable and pleasant.  Catherine Harland was, for once, quite cheerful and chatty, and proposed that as there was a lovely moonlight, we should all go after dinner into the deck saloon, where there was a piano, and that I should sing for them.  I was rather surprised at this suggestion, as she was not fond of music.  Nevertheless, there had been such an evident wish shown by her and her father to lighten the monotony which had been creeping like a mental fog over us all that I readily agreed to anything which might perhaps for the moment give them pleasure.

We went up on deck accordingly, and on arriving there were all smitten into awed silence by the wonderful beauty of the scene.  We were anchored in Loch Scavaig—­and the light of the moon fell with a weird splendour on the gloom of the surrounding hills, a pale beam touching the summits here and there and deepening the solemn effect of the lake and the magnificent forms of its sentinel mountains.  A low murmur of hidden streams sounded on the deep stillness and enhanced the fascination of the surrounding landscape, which was more like the landscape of a dream than a reality.  The deep breadths of dense darkness lying lost among the cavernous slopes of the hills were broken at intervals by strange rifts of light arising as it were from the palpitating water, which now and again showed gleams of pale emerald and gold phosphorescence,—­the stars looked large