It was a cruel sort of jesting; but how otherwise than as a jest could he convey to her, an actress, his wish that all theatres were at the bottom of the sea?  For a brief time that letter seemed to establish some link of communication between him and her.  He followed it on its travels by sea and land.  He thought of its reaching the house in which she dwelt—­perhaps some plain and grimy building in a great manufacturing city, or perhaps a small quiet cottage up by Regent’s Park half hidden among the golden leaves of October.  Might she not, moreover, after she had opened it and read it, be moved by some passing whim to answer it, though it demanded no answer?  He waited for a week, and there was no word or message from the South.  She was far away, and silent.  And the hills grew lonelier than before, and the sickness of his heart increased.

This state of mind could not last.  His longing and impatience and unrest became more than he could bear.  It was in vain that he tried to satisfy his imaginative craving with these idle visions of her:  it was she herself he must see; and he set about devising all manner of wild excuses for one last visit to the South.  But the more he considered these various projects, the more ashamed he grew in thinking of his taking any one of them and placing it before the beautiful old dame who reigned in Castle Dare.  He had barely been three months at home; how could he explain to her this sudden desire to go away again?

One morning his cousin Janet came to him.

“Oh, Keith!” said she, “the whole house is in commotion; and Hamish is for murdering some of the lads; and there is no one would dare to bring the news to you.  The two young buzzards have escaped!”

“I know it,” he said.  “I let them out myself.”

“You!” she exclaimed in surprise; for she knew the great interest he had shown in watching the habits of the young hawks that had been captured by a shepherd lad.

“Yes; I let them out last night.  It was a pity to have them caged up.”

“So long as it was yourself, it is all right,” she said; and then she was going away.  But she paused and turned, and said to him, with a smile, “And I think you should let yourself escape, too, Keith, for it is you too that are caged up; and perhaps you feel it now more since you have been to London.  And if you are thinking of your friends in London, why should you not go for another visit to the South before you settle down to the long winter?”

For an instant he regarded her with some fear.  Had she guessed his secret?  Had she been watching the outward signs of this constant torture he had been suffering?  Had she surmised that the otter-skins about which he had asked her advice were not consigned to any one of the married ladies whose acquaintance he had made in the South, and of whom he had chatted freely enough in Castle Dare?  Or was this merely a passing suggestion thrown out by one who was always on the lookout to do a kindness?