This time it was Nort who made no reply. They stood a moment side by side, and it was thus that Fergus, a hundred paces behind in the shadows of the trees, first saw them--with misery in his soul. They walked on slowly again, feeling each other's presence with such poignant consciousness that neither dared speak. Thus they came to Anthy's gate: and there they paused a moment. "Good-night," said Nort. "Good-night," responded Anthy faintly. She looked up at him with the starlight on her face. It seemed to him that he saw her for the first time. He had never really known her before. He was dizzily conscious of flashing lights and something in his throat that hurt him. "Anthy," he said huskily, "you are the most beautiful woman in the world." She still stood, close to him, looking up into his face. She tried to move, but could not. "Anthy," he said again, with shaking voice, and stooping over kissed her upon her lips. She uttered a little low cry and, turning quickly, with her hand lifted to her face, ran up the walk to the house. "Anthy," he called after her--such a call as she will not forget to her dying day. And she was gone. Nort stood by the gate, clasping the wood until his fingers hurt him, in a wild tumult of emotion. And behind him in the shadows, not a hundred paces away, Fergus, with clenched hands. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII FERGUS AND NORT Fergus MacGregor was approaching the supreme moment of his life. As I have said before, it was a long time before I began to understand that roseate Scotchman. His husk was so thick and prickly that one approached him at his peril. I knew that he was as hard as nails and as real as boiled cabbage; I knew, also, that just within his rough exterior there were unusual qualities of strength and warmth, and I had grown strangely to like him and trust him; but there were reaches and depths in his character that I was long in discovering. I remember his telling me with some pride that he was a skeptic in religion, "an infidel if ye like," and that the "Address to the Unco Guid," about expressed his views. He could also repeat "Holy Willie's Prayer" to perfection. But I soon found that he was an infidel in much the same terms that his forefathers had been Covenanters--a terribly orthodox infidel, if that can be imagined. Skepticism meant no mushy liberalism with him; it only meant that he had adopted a new creed, and that he would fight as hard for his skepticism as other men fight for their more positive beliefs. But if he had changed his religious views, the moral standards which lay beneath them like the primordial rocks had not been in the least shaken.