He could not divine how susceptible to the opinion of women was the heart of a woman, even when it retained but little of its first freshness. Matty was not startled by Colin’s love, but she was by his mother’s belief in it and herself; it stopped her short in her careless career, and suggested endings that were not pleasant to think of. If she had been kept in amusement for a day or two after, it might have been well for Colin--but being bored she returned to her natural sport, and this interruption did him no good in the end. CHAPTER XII. The parting of the two who had been thrown so much together, who had thought so much of each other, and who had, notwithstanding, so few things in common, was as near an absolute parting as is practicable in this world of constant commotion, where everybody meets everybody else in the most unlikely regions. Colin dared not propose to write to her; dared not, indeed--being withheld by the highest impulses of honour--venture to say to her what was in his heart; and Miss Matty herself was a little silent--perhaps a little moved--and could not utter any commonplaces about meeting again, as she had intended to do. So they said good-bye to each other in a kind of absolute way, as if it might be for ever and ever. As for Matty, who was not in love, but whose heart was touched, and who had a vague, instinctive sense that she might never more meet anybody in her life like this country lad--perhaps she had enough generosity left in her to feel that it would be best they should not meet again. But Colin had no such thoughts. He felt in his heart that one time--how or when he knew not--he should yet go to her feet and offer what he had to offer: everything else in the world except that one thing was doubtful to Colin, but concerning that he was confident, and entertained no fear. And so they parted; she, perhaps, for half an hour or so, the most deeply moved of the two. Miss Matty, however, was just as captivating as usual in the next house they went to, where there were one or two people worth looking at, and the company in general was more interesting than at Ardmartin; but Colin, for his part, spent most of the evening on the hillside, revolving in the silence a hundred tumultuous thoughts. It was the end of September, and the nights were cold on the Holy Loch. There was not even a moon to enliven the landscape, and all that could be seen was the cold, blue glimmer of the water, upon which Colin looked down with a kind of desolate sense of elevation--elevation of the mind and of the heart, which made the grief of parting look like a grand moral agent, quickening all his powers, and concentrating his strength. Henceforward the strongest of personal motives was to inspire him in all his conflicts. He was going into the battle of life with his lady’s colours on his helmet, like a knight of romance, and failure was not to be thought of as a possibility. As he