himself; and here was an excellent opportunity for him to have practised his vocalises; but it was not of vocalises, nor of anything connected with the theatre, that he was thinking.  He was much franker with himself now.  He no longer tried to conceal from himself the cause of this vague unrest, this useless looking back and longing, this curious downhearted sense of solitariness.  A new experience, truly, and a bewildering one!  Indeed, he was ashamed of his own folly.  For what was it that he wanted?  A mere continuance of that friendly alliance and companionship which he had enjoyed all this time?  Was he indulging a sort of sentimental misery simply because he could not walk down to the Aivron’s banks and talk to Miss Honnor and watch the sun tracing threads of gold among her tightly braided hair?  If that were all, he might get out at the next station, make his way back to the beloved strath, and be sure that Honnor Cunyngham would welcome him just as of old, and allow him to carry her waterproof or ask him to have a cast over the Junction Pool.  He had no reason to fear any break in this friendship that had been formed.  When he should see her in Brighton, she would be to him as she had been yesterday, when they said good-bye by the side of the river.  And were not these the only possible relations between them; and ought he not to be proud and content that he could look forward to an enduring continuance of them?

Yes; but some man would be coming along and marrying her; and where would he be then?  What would become of this alliance, this friendly understanding—­perhaps, even, some little interest on her part in his affairs—­what would become of all these relations, then?  It was the way of the world.  Their paths would be divided—­he would hear vaguely of her—­perhaps see her name in the papers as being at a drawing-room or something of the kind.  She would have forgotten all those long, still days by the Aivron and the Geinig; no echo would remain in her memory of “The Bonnie Earl o’ Morau,” as he had sung it for her, with all the passionate pathos of which he was capable; she would be a stranger—­moving afar—­one heard of only—­a remembrance—­and no more.  So the impalpable future was interwoven with those dreams and not too happy forecasts, as the train thundered on its way, along the wooded banks of the Allan Water and towards the winding Links of Forth.

But there was an alternative that would recur again and again to his fancy, though in rather a confused and breathless way.  What if, in the very despair of losing her altogether, at the very moment of parting with her, he had made bold to claim this proud-spirited maiden all for himself?  Might not some such sudden and audacious proposal have been the very thing to appeal to her—­the very thing to capture her?  A challenge—­a demand that she should submit—­that she should come down from those serene heights of independence and yield herself a willing and gracious helpmeet and companion