lled
by you, your nearest friend, stepped before you--made love to her,
betrayed her--and left her to bear the shame.... I myself know that he
kept you in ignorance, and that, away from here, he let you still
write to him in friendship and answered in that tone.... All know that
she drowned herself because of him, and that you knew naught until you
yourself entered the Kelpie's Pool and found her body and carried her
home.... After that you left the country to find and fight Ian
Rullock. Folk know, too, that he evaded you then. You returned. Then
came this insurrection, and news that he was in Scotland with the
Pretender. You joined the King's forces. Then, after Culloden, you
found the false friend in hiding, in the mountains. The two of you
fought, and, as is often the way, the injurer seemed again to win. You
were dangerously wounded. He fled. Soldiers upon his track found you
lying in your blood. You were carried to Inverness. Dickson and I went
to you, brought you at last home. In the mean time came news that the
man you fought had been taken by the soldiers. I suppose that we have
all had visions of him, in prison, expecting to suffer with other
conspirators."

"Yes, I have had visions ... outward facts!... Do you know the inner,
northern ocean, where sleep all the wrecks?"

"As I have watched you since you were a boy, it is improbable that I
should not have some divining power. In Inverness, too, while you were
fevered, you talked and talked.... You have walked with Tragedy, felt
her net and her strong whip." Strickland lifted his eyes from the
bowl, pushed back his chair a little, and looked full at the laird of
Glenfernie. "What then? Rise, Glenfernie, and leave her behind! And if
you do not now, it will soon be hard for you to do so! Remember, too,
that I watched your father--"

"After I find Ian Rullock in Holland or Lisbon or America--"

Strickland made a movement of deep concern. "You have met and fought
this man. Do you mean so to nourish vengeance--"

"I mean so to aid and vindicate distressed Justice."

"Is it the way?"

"I think that it is the way."

Strickland was silent, seeing the uselessness. Glenfernie was one to
whom conviction must come from within. A stillness held in the room,
broken by the laird in the voice that was growing like his father's.
"Nothing lacks now but strength, and I am gaining that--will gain it
the faster now! Travel--travel!... All my travel was preparatory to
this