Ian's business arrangements curtailed the length of any festivity in relation to the marriage. He had already signed an agreement with Dr. Frazer to return to him as soon as possible after the twelfth day and remain as his assistant until he was fully authenticated a surgeon by the proper schools. In the meantime he would enter the London School of Medicine and Surgery and give to Dr. Frazer all the time not demanded by its hours and exercises. For this attention Ian was to receive from Dr. Frazer one hundred pounds a year. Furthermore, when Ian had received the proper authority to call himself Dr. John Macrae, he was to have the offer of a partnership with Dr. Frazer, on what were considered very favourable terms. So their little romance was at last happily over. Ian was an infinitely finer and nobler man. He had dwelt amid great acts and great suffering for a year and had not visited the House of Mourning in vain. All that was light and trifling had fallen away from him. He regarded his life and talents now as a great and solemn charge and was resolved to make them of use to his fellows. And Thora was lovelier than she had ever been. She had learned self-restraint and she had hoped through evil days, till good days came; so then, she knew how to look for good when all appeared wrong and by faith and will, bring good out of evil. After Thora and her husband left for London a great change took place in the Ragnor home. Ragnor had been preparing for it ever since his visit to London and, within a month, Robert Ragnor and his wife and family came from Shetland and took possession. It gave Rahal a little pain to see any woman in her place but that was nothing, she was going to give her dear Coll the dream of his life. She was going to travel with him, and see all the civilized countries in the world! She was going to London first, and last, of all! CHAPTER XI SEQUENCES Not long ago I found in a list of Orkney and Shetland literature several volumes by a Conall Ragnor, two of them poetry. But that just tended to certify a suspicion. Sixty years ago I had heard him repeat some Gallic poems and had known instinctively, though only a girl of eighteen, that the man was a poet.