his time it had been
shared blood. Strickland, sitting with his book in the quiet room, saw
in imagination the students' chambers in Edinburgh, and the little
throng of very young men, flushed with wine and with youth, making
friendships, and talking of friendships made, and dubbing Alexander
Damon and Ian Pythias. Then more wine and a bravura passage. Damon and
Pythias opening each a vein with some convenient dagger, smearing into
the wound some drops of the other's blood, and going home each with a
tourniquet above the right wrist.... Well, that was years ago--and
youth loved such passages!

Alexander, by the fire, stooped to put back a coal that had fallen
upon the oak boards, then sank again into his reverie. Strickland read
a paragraph without any especial comprehension, after which he found
himself again by the stream of Alexander's life. That friendship with
Ian Rullock utterly held, he believed. Well, Ian Rullock, too, seemed
somehow a great personage. Very different from Alexander, and yet
somehow large to match.... Where had Alexander been after
Edinburgh--where had he not been? Very often Ian was with him, but
sometimes and for months he would seem to have been alone. Glenfernie
might receive letters from Germany, from Italy or Egypt, or from
further yet to the east. He had been alone this year, for Ian was now
the King's man and with his regiment, Strickland supposed, wherever
that might be. Alexander had written from Buda-Pesth, from Erfurt,
from Amsterdam, from London. Now he sat here at Glenfernie, looking
into the fire. Strickland, who liked books of travel, wondered what he
saw of old cities, grave or gay, of ruined temples, sphinxes,
monuments, grass-grown battle-fields, and ships at sea, storied lands,
peoples, individual men and women. He had wayfared long; he must have
had many an adventure. He had been from childhood a learner. His touch
upon a book spoke of adeptship in that world.... Well, here he was,
and what would he do now, when he was laird? Strickland lost himself
in speculation. Little or naught had ever been in Alexander's letters
about women.

The white ash fell, the clock ticked, the wind went around the house
with a faint, banshee crying. The figure by the fire rested there,
silent, still, and brooding. Strickland observed with some wonder its
power of long, concentrated thinking. It sat there, not visibly
tense, seemingly relaxed, yet as evidently looking into some place of
inner m