His voice choked—but only for a moment. He suddenly sprang to his feet, and flung his arms in the air, as if he would free himself from this intolerable burden of despondency and doubt."Why," said he, in accents of scornful impatience, "have I gone mad, or what pestilent thing is this! Sursum corda! We have faced the world together, she and I, and no one has ever yet found us downhearted. 'We've aye been provided for, and sae will we yet': I do not mean as regards the common necessities of life—for these are but of small account—but the deeper necessities of sympathy and hope and confidence. Stand fast, Craig-Royston!—'this rock shall fly, from its firm base as soon as I!' Well, my young friend," he continued, quite cheerfully and bravely, "you have seen me in a mood that is not common with me: you will say nothing about it—to her, especially. She puts her trust in me; and so far, I think, I have not failed her. I have said to her 'Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them'; ill fortune buffets uselessly against 'man's unconquerable mind.' She knows the race she comes of, and the motto of that race: Craig-Royston holds its front! Well, well, now, let me thank you for this beautiful evening; and on her behalf too; she is at the time when the mind should be stored with pleasant memories. Perhaps I have been over-communicative, and made you the victim of idle fears; but there will be no more of that; to-morrow you shall find me in my right mind."He held out his hand. The young man did not know what to say—there was so much to say! He could only make offer of some further little hospitalities, which Mr. Bethune declined; then the steward was summoned, to put out the lamps and make other preparations, so that the White Roseshould fold its petals together, for the slumber of the night. And presently a profound peace reigned from stem to stern; and the last plashing of the oars outside had died away.But it was not to sleep that Vincent devoted the early hours of this night and morning. His mind was tossed this way and that by all kinds of moods and projects, the former piteous and the latter wildly impracticable. He had never before fully realised how curiously solitary was the lot of these two wanderers, how strange was their isolation, how uncertain was their future. And while the old man's courage and bold front provoked his admiration, he could not help looking at the other side of the shield: what was to become of her, when her only protector was taken from her? He knew that they were none too well off, those two; and what would she do when left alone? But if on the very next day he were to go to Mrs. Ellison and borrow £10,000 from her, which he would have mysteriously conveyed to old George Bethune? He could repay the money, partly by the sacrifice of his own small fortune, and partly by the assigning over of the paternal allowance; while he could go away to Birmingham, or Sheffield, or wherever the place was, and earn his living by becoming Mr. Ogden's private secretary. They need never know from whom this bounty came, and it would render them secure from all the assaults of fortune. Away up there in the Black Country he would think of them; and it would lighten the wearisome toil of the desk if he could imagine that Maisrie Bethune had left the roar and squalor of London, and was perhaps wandering through these very Thames-side meadows, or floating in some white-garnitured boat, under the shade of the willows. There would be rest for the pilgrims at last, after their world-buffetings. And so he lay and dreamed and pitied and planned, until in the window of the small state-room there appeared the first blue-gray of the dawn, about which time he finally fell asleep.Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume I), Stalled Ox and a Dinner of Herbs, Fairy Land, An Alarm, The Wanderers, Neighbours