'Yes, there has, and I like to think that there has. Nobody knows how good you are but Ta-ta and me; we often talk about you when we're out together, don't we, Ta-ta?' The collie wagged her tail violently, taking this little bit of affectionate conversation as a welcome relief to the monotony of our studies. 'Well, I shall leave Ta-ta with you, then, to keep my memory green while I'm away.' 'Away! Are you going away?' 'Yes. I am going to Norway for the summer.' I could not tell exactly when I made up my mind to this, but I know that I had had no intention of the kind when Babiole came into my study that afternoon. She remained quite silent for a few minutes. Then she asked softly-- 'When will you come back, Mr. Maude?' 'Oh, about--September, I think.' 'The place won't seem the same without you.' 'Why, child, when you are about on the hills I never see you.' 'No, but--but I always have a feeling that the good genius is about, and--do you know, I think I shall be afraid to take such long walks alone with Ta-ta when you're not here!' My heart went out to the child. With a passionate joy in the innocent trust one little human creature felt towards me, the outcast, I was on the point of telling her, as carelessly as I could, that I had not quite made up my mind yet, when she broke the spell as unwittingly as she had woven it. 'Oh, Mr. Maude,' she cried, with fervent disappointment; 'then your friends--Mr. Scott--and the rest--they won't come here this year?' 'No,' said I coolly, but with no sign of the sudden chill her words had given me, 'I shall invite them to Norway this year.' Before April was over I had installed Mrs. Ellmer as caretaker at Larkhall, and, with Ferguson at my heels, had set out on my wanderings again. CHAPTER XI If I went away to appease the restlessness which had attacked me so suddenly, to persuade myself that the secret of happiness for me lay in never remaining long in the same place, I succeeded badly. It was not until I was three hundred miles away from them that I began fully to appreciate the joys of domestic life with To-to and Ta-ta, the comfort of being able to keep my books together, the supreme blessing of sitting every evening in the same arm-chair. I was surprised by this at first, till I reflected that the very loneliness of my life was bound to bring middle age upon me early. There was a period of each day which I found it very hard to get through; whether in Paris, enjoying coffee and cigarette at a cafe on the boulevards, or in Norway, watching the sunset on some picturesque fiord, when the day began to wane I grew restless, and, referring aimlessly to my watch again and again, could settle down to nothing till the last rays of daylight had faded away.