“I almost think you should go under an assumed name,” Miss Honnor said, presently, with a bit of a laugh.  “I dare say the people wouldn’t recognise you in ordinary dress.  And then, when the amateur vocalists had been going on with their Pretty-Janes and Meet-Me-by-Moonlights, when you gave them ‘The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray,’ as you would sing it, I should think amazement would be on most faces.  But I dare say Lady Adela has had it announced in the Inverness Courier that you are to sing, for they want to make a grand success of the concert, to help to clear off the debt; and of course all the people from the shooting-lodges will be coming, for it isn’t every autumn they have a chance of hearing Mr. Lionel Moore in Ross-shire.”

Really, she was becoming quite complaisant!—­this proud, unapproachable fisher-maiden, who seemed to live, remote and isolated, in a world all of her own.  And so she was coming to this amateur concert, merely to hear him sing?  Be sure the first thing he did that evening, on entering the drawing-room after dinner, was to go up to Miss Georgie Lestrange with a humble little speech, asking her whether she would object to his borrowing that particular ballad from her repertory.  The smiling and gracious young damsel instantly replied that, on the contrary, she would be delighted to play the accompaniment for him.  Would he look at the music now?  He did look at it; found it simple enough; imagined that the refrain verse might be made rather effective.  Would he try it over now?  Yes, if she would be so kind.  She forthwith went to the piano, he following; and at once there was silence in the long, low-ceilinged drawing-room.  Of course this was but a trial, and the room had not been constructed with a view to any acoustic requirements; nevertheless, the fine and penetrating timbre of his trained voice told all the same; indeed, it is probable there was a lump in the throat of more than one of those young ladies when he sang the pathetic refrain, with its proud and sonorous finish—­

   “O lang may his lady-love
      Look frae the Castle Doune,
    Ere she see the Earl o’ Moray
      Come sounding through the toun.”

Simple as the air was, it haunted the ear even of this professional vocalist all the evening; but perhaps that was because he was looking forward to a coming occasion on which he would have to sing the ballad; and well he knew that however numerous his audience might be—­though he might be standing before all the Rosses and Frasers, the Gordons and Munroes, the Mackays and Mackenzies of the county—­well he knew that he would be singing—­that he intended to sing—­to an audience of one only.  And which would she like to have emphasized the more—­the pathetic and hopeless outlook of the lady in the tower, or the proud state and ceremony of the earl himself as he used to “come sounding through the toun”?  Well, he would practise a little, and ascertain what he could do with it—­on some occasion when he found himself alone away up in the hills, with a silence around him unbroken save for the hushed whisper of the birch-leaves and the distant, low murmur of the Geinig falls.