ow firelight and made ready for the night. The laird
lay propped as before in the great bed, but seemed asleep. Alexander
sat before the fire, elbows upon knees and chin in hand, brooding over
the red coals. Tibbie murmured a direction or two and showed wine and
bread set in the deep window. Then with a courtesy and a breathed,
"Gie ye gude night, sirs!" she was forth to her own rest. The door
closed softly behind her. Strickland stepped as softly to the chair
beyond Alexander. The couch was spread for the watchers' alternate
use, if so they chose; on a table burned shaded candles. Strickland
had a book in his pocket. Sitting down, he produced this, for he would
not seem to watch the man by the fire.

Alexander Jardine, large and strong of frame, with a countenance
massive and thoughtful for so young a man, bronzed, with well-turned
features, gazed steadily into the red hollows where the light played,
withdrew and played again. Strickland tried to read, but the sense of
the other's presence affected him, came between his mind and the page.
Involuntarily he began to occupy himself with Alexander and to picture
his life away from Glenfernie, away, too, from Edinburgh and Scotland.
It was now six years since, definitely, he had given up the law,
throwing himself, as it were, on the laird's mercy both for long and
wide travel, and for life among books other than those indicated for
advocates. The laird had let him go his gait--the laird with Mrs.
Jardine a little before him. The Jardine fortune was not a great one,
but there was enough for an heir who showed no inclination to live and
to travel _en prince_, who in certain ways was nearer the ascetic
than the spendthrift.... Before Strickland's mind, strolling dreamily,
came pictures of far back, of years ago, of long since. A by-wind had
brought to the tutor then certain curious bits of knowledge.
Alexander, a student in Edinburgh, had lived for some time upon half
of his allowance in order to accommodate Ian Rullock with the other
half, the latter being in a crisis of quarrel with his uncle, who,
when he quarreled, used always, where he could, the money screw.
Strickland had listened to his Edinburgh informant, but had never
divulged the news given. No more had he told another bit, floated to
him again by that ancient Edinburgh friend and gossip, who had young
cousins at college and listened to their talk. It pertained to a time
a little before that of the shared income. T