Nor was this quite the last he was to see of those good friends.  When the horses had strenuously hauled the carriage up that steep hillside and got into the level highway, he turned to look back at the Lodge, set in the midst of the wide strath, and behold! there was a fluttering of white handkerchiefs there, Lady Adela and her sisters and Miss Georgie still lingering in the porch.  Again and again he made response.  Then, as he drove on, he caught another glance of Miss Honnor, who, far below him, was industriously fishing the Whirl Pool; when she heard the sound of the wheels, she looked up and waved her hand to him as he went by.  Finally there came the crack of a gun across the wide strath; it was a signal from the shooting-party—­away on a distant hillside—­and he could just make out that they, also, were sending him a telegraphic good-bye.  At each opening through the birch-wood skirting the road he answered these farewells, until Strathaivron Lodge was no longer in sight; and then he settled himself in his seat and resigned himself to the long journey.

This was not a pleasant drive.  He was depressed with a vague aching and emptiness of the heart that he could not well account for.  A schoolboy returning to his tasks after a long holiday would not be quite so profoundly miserable—­so reckless, dissatisfied, and ill at ease.  But perhaps it was the loss of one of those pleasant companions that was troubling him?  Which one, then (he made pretence of asking himself), was he sorriest to part from?  Lady Adela, who was always so bright and talkative and cheerful, so charming a hostess, so considerate and gentle a friend?  Or the mystic-eyed Lady Sybil, who many an evening had led him away into the wonder-land of Chopin, for she was an accomplished pianist, if her own compositions were but feeble echoes of the masters?  Or the more quick-spirited Lady Rosamund, the imperious and petulant beauty, who, in a way most unwonted with her, had bestowed upon him exceptional favor?  Or that atrocious little flirt, Miss Georgie Lestrange, with her saucy smiles and speeches, her malicious laugh, and demure, significant eyes?—­it was hardly to be wondered at if she made an impression on any young man, for the minx had an abundance of good looks, despite her ruddy hair and pert nose.  As for Miss Honnor Cunyngham—­oh, no!—­she was too far away—­she lived remote, isolated, apart—­she neither gave nor demanded sympathy or society—­she was sufficient unto herself alone.  But why ask whether it were this one or that?  Soon he would be forgotten by them all.  He would be swallowed up in the great city—­swept away in the current of its feverish activities—­his voice hardly heard above the general din; while they would still be pursuing their various pastimes in this little world of solitude and quiet, or moving on to entertain their friends with the more pompous festivities of the Braes.

It was odd that he should be carrying away with him the seeds of homesickness for a place in which his stay had been counted by weeks.  So anxious, indeed, was he to assure himself that his relations with that beautiful valley and its inmates were not entirely severed that, the moment he reached Inverness, instead of going into the Station Hotel and ordering his dinner like a reasonable being, he must needs go straightway off to Mr. Watson’s shop.