And here he was, seated side by side with Honnor Cunyngham, talking to her, listening to her, and with no sort of perturbation whatever.  He began to ask himself whether he had ever been in love with her—­whether he had not rather been in love with her way of life and its surroundings.  He was thinking not so much of her as her departure on the morrow, and the scenes that lay beyond.  Why had he not L10,000 a year—­L5000—­nay, L1000 a year—­and freedom?  Why could he not warm his soul with the consciousness that the salmon-rods were all packed and waiting in the hall; that new casting-lines had been put in the fly-book; that only the short drive up to Euston and a single black night lay between him and all the wide wonder of the world that would open out thereafter?  Forth from the darkness into a whiter light—­a larger day—­a sweeter air; for now we are among the russet beech-hedges, the deep-green pines, the purple hills touched here and there with snow; and the far-stretching landscape is shining in the morning sun; and the peewits are wheeling hither and thither in the blue.  Then we are thundering through rocky chasms and watching the roaring brown torrent beneath; or panting or struggling away up the lonely altitudes of Drumouchter; and again merrily racing and chasing down into the spacious valley of the Spey.  And what for the end?—­the long, still strath after leaving Invershin—­the penetration into the more secret solitudes—­the peaks of Coulmore and Suilven in the west—­and here the Aivron making a murmuring music over its golden gravel!  There is a smell of peat in the air; there are children’s voices about the keepers’ cottages; and here is the handsome old Robert, rejoiced that the year has opened again and Miss Honnor come back!  “Well, Robert, you must come in and have a dram, and I will show you the tackle I’ve brought with me.”  “I am not wishing for a dram, Miss Honnor, so much as I am glad to see you back again, ay, and looking so well!”

“Mr. Moore,” she said (and she startled him out of his reverie), “do you ever give a little dinner-party at your rooms?”

“Well, seldom,” he said.  “You see, I have only the one evening in the week; and I have generally some engagement or other.”

[Illustration:  “There was a slight touch of color visible on the gracious forehead when she offered him her hand.”]

“I should like to send you a salmon, if it would be of any use to you,” she went on to say.

“Thank you very much; I would rather see you hook and land it than have the compliment of its being sent to me twenty times over.  I was thinking this very minute of the Aivron, and your getting down to the ford the day after to-morrow, and old Robert being there to welcome you.  I envy him—­and you.  Are you to be all by yourself at the lodge?”