First, to his rooms again, to see if by chance the letter had come in his absence.  Then, as it had not, to Lady Elspeth Gordon’s for old Hamish’s latest news, which, in a letter from his wife, was satisfactory as far as it went, but pointed to a protracted stay.  And then, with stern resolution, up to Baker Street and away by train to Chesham, for a long day’s tramp through the Buckingham hills and dales, by Chenies to Chorley Wood and Rickmansworth, so to weary the body that the wearier brain should get some rest that night.

The sweet soft air and sunshine, the leisurely life of the villages, and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind.  Every sparrow twittered hope.  The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it melodiously.  It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly company.  Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented Margaret replying to his letter.  Time would clear it up and set him wondering at his lapse from fullest faith.

Also—­he would risk even further rebuff.  He would write again, and this time he would trust no precarious and problematical post-office.  He would drop his letter into the Pixley letter-box himself, and so be sure that it got there.

If then no answer,—­to the winds with Mrs. Grundy and all her coils and conventions!  He would call and see Margaret himself, and learn from her own eyes and face and lips how matters stood, and Mrs. Grundy might dance and scream on the step outside until she grew tired of the exercise.

There was joy and hope in action once more.  Patient waiting on slowly-dying Hope is surely the direst moral and mental torture to which poor humanity can be subjected.  That is where woman pre-eminently overpasses man.  Woman can wait unmurmuringly on dying Hope till the last breath is gone, then silently take up her burden and go on her way—­or, if the strain has been too great, fold quiet hands on quiet heart and follow her dead hopes into the living hope beyond.  Man must aye be doing—­and as often as not, such natural judgment as he possesses being warped and jangled by the strain of waiting, he succeeds only in making matters worse and a more complete fool of himself.

To be writing to Margaret again was to be living in hope once more.

If nothing came of this, he would call at the Pixley house.

If nothing came of that—­he grew valiant in his new access of life—­he would beard Jeremiah Pixley in his den in Lincoln’s Inn, state clearly how matters stood, and request permission to approach his ward.

After all, this is a free country, and all men are equal under the law, though he had his own doubts as to whether he would find himself quite equal to that gleaming pillar of light, Mr. Jeremiah Pixley.

So he wrote—­

    “Dear miss Brandt,—­I wrote to you a few days ago, giving you
    the information of our dear friend Lady Elspeth’s sudden summons
    to Inverstrife, to attend her niece, the Countess of Assynt.