“Oh, no,” she said, “he never went out but that once, and then he nearly killed himself, according to his own account.  We never quite knew what happened; there was some dark mystery that Roderick wouldn’t explain; and, you know, Lord Fareborough himself is rather short-tempered.  He ought not to have gone out—­a man who has imagined himself into that hypochondriacal state.  However, it has given him an excuse for thinking himself a greater invalid than ever; and he has got it into his head now that we all of us persuaded him to try a day’s stalking—­a conspiracy, as it were, to murder him.  There was some accident at one of the fords, I believe.  He came home early.  I never heard of his having fired at a stag at all.”  And then she added, with a smile.  “Mr. Moore, what made you send me such a lot of salmon-flies?”

“Oh, well,” he said, “I thought you ought to have a good stock.”  How could he tell her of his vague hope that the Jock Scotts and Blue Doctors might serve for a long time to recall him to her memory?

“I suppose you have got the stag’s head by now?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed; and tremendously proud of it I am,” he responded, eagerly.  “You know I should never have gone deer-stalking but for you.  I made sure I was going to make a fool of myself—­”

“I remember you were rather sensitive, or anxious not to miss, perhaps,” she said, in a very gentle way.  “I thought of it again last night, when I saw you so completely master in your own sphere—­so much at home—­with everything at your command—­”

“Oh, yes, very much at home,” he answered her, with just a touch of bitterness.  “Perhaps it is easy to be at home—­in harlequinade—­though you may not quite like it.”  And then once more he refused to talk of the theatre.  “I am going to send old Robert some tobacco at Christmas,” said he.

“I heard of what you did already in that way,” she said, smiling.  “Do you know that you may spoil a place by your extravagance?  I should think all the keepers and gillies in Strathaivron were blessing your name at this very moment.”

“And you go up in the spring, you said?”

“Yes.  That is the real fishing-time.  My brother Hugh and I have it all to ourselves then; Lady Adela and the rest of them prefer London.”

And then it was almost in his heart to cry out to her, “May not I, too, go up there, if but for a single week—­for six clear-shining days in the springtime?” Ben More, Suilven, Canisp—­oh, to see them once again!—­and the windy skies, and Geinig thundering down its rocky chasm, and Aivron singing its morning song along the golden gravel of its shoals! what did he want with any theatre?—­with the harlequinade in which he was losing his life?  Could he not escape?  Euston station was not so far away—­and Invershin?  It seemed to him as though he had already shaken himself free—­that a gladder pulsation filled his veins—­that he was breathing a sweeter air.  The white April days shone all around him; the silver and purple clouds went flying overhead; here he was by the deep, brown pools again, with the gray rocks and the overhanging birch-woods and the long shallows filling all the world with that soft, continuous murmur.  As for his singing?—­oh, yes, he could sing—­he could sing, if needs were,