good-by to Ogilvie, he went ashore. He made his way up to the cottage in
South Bank. He entered the drawing-room and sat down, alone.

When she came in, she said, with a quick anxiety, "You are not ill?"

"No, no," he said rising, and his face was haggard somewhat; "but--but
it is not pleasant to come to say good-by--"

"You must not take it so seriously as that," she said, with a friendly
smile.

"My going away is like going into a grave," he said, slowly. "It is
dark."

And then he took her two hands in his, and regarded her with such an
intensity of look that she almost drew back, afraid.

"Sometimes," he said, watching her eyes, "I think I shall never see you
again."

"Oh, Keith," said she, drawing her hands away, and speaking half
playfully, "you really frighten me! And even if you were never to see me
again, wouldn't it be a very good thing for you? You would have got rid
of a bad bargain."

"It would not be a very good thing for me," he said, still regarding
her.

"Oh, well, don't speak of it," said she, lightly; "let us speak of all
that is to be done in the long time that must pass before we meet--"

"But why '_must?_'" said he, eagerly--"why '_must?_' If you knew how I
looked forward to the blackness of this winter away up there--so far
away from you that I shall forget the sound of your voice--oh! you
cannot know what it is to me?"

He had sat down again, his eyes, with a sort of pained and hunted look
in them, bent on the floor.

"But there is a '_must_,' you know," she said, cheerfully, "and we ought
to be sensible folk and recognize it. You know I ought to have a
probationary period, as it were--like a nun, you know, just to see if
she is fit to--"

Here Miss White paused, with a little embarrassment; but presently she
charged the difficulty, and said, with a slight laugh,--

"To take the veil, in fact. You must give me time to become accustomed
to a whole heap of things: if we were to do anything suddenly now, we
might blunder into some great mistake, perhaps irretrievable. I must
train myself by degrees for another kind of life altogether; and I am
going to surprise you, Keith--I am indeed. If papa takes me to the
Highlands next year, you won't recognize me at all. I am going to read
up all about the Highlands, and learn the tartans, and the names of
fishes and birds; and I will walk in the rain and try to think nothing
about it; and perhaps I may learn a little Gaelic: indeed, Keith,