She had not been thinking of Fanshawe, nor of any one, when he joined her suddenly; her thoughts had been all vague, full of that soreness which was almost a relief from the heavy stupor of her grief. She had seemed to herself, not suffering actively, but stupid in sadness; sad, sad down to the bottom of her heart; a state of mind not without a certain repose in it, which this other sensation of being wounded and injured shot across, now and then, like a thrill of life. But it seemed very natural to her when Fanshawe came to her side, more natural even than if it had been Uncle Charles. He held out his arm, and she took it only half consciously, and with a kind of faint pleasure allowed him to lead her to the edge of the cliff, where the sea-line was visible, with the Isle of May rising well out of the waters, and the twinkling lights along Comlie shore marking out the length of the little town. Her heart was overwhelmed with this profound and gentle sadness; and yet there was a pleasure in it, too. “Miss Heriot,” said Fanshawe; “I want to have you a little while to myself, to-night. This is no place for me any longer. I must go away.” “It is no place for any of us,” said Marjory, instinctively adopting him into the number of those who belonged to her. They were so few now. But he took no advantage of this inference. He took it for granted, simply as she did. Perhaps he pressed her hand a little closer to his side; but if so, the action was involuntary. “No,” he said, “it is no place for you. This piece of impertinence to-night--” “I never thought of it,” said Marjory; “it was nothing; that could not make any difference; but we must go.” “It is selfish of me to say anything,” he said; “but it is I who must go first--not the same man who came here a month ago, Miss Heriot; just a month--though it might be an hour, or it might be a year. It has separated my life into two pieces. May I write to you after I have managed to take myself away?” “Surely,” she said, in her gentlest tone. “And will you write to me? I have no right to ask it; but you are--different, somehow. You know how little I am good for. I don’t mean to make any professions to you now--to say you have made me better. Perhaps I am past making better. I should like to try, first; but if you would write now and then, just three words--” “Certainly I will write,” she said, looking frankly in his face. “How much you have been to us all this terrible time! Do you think I can ever forget it? And it is not only that we owe you a day in harvest--as we Scotch folk say--but people cannot feel with each other as we have done, and then cease and forget each other. Certainly I will write; it will be one of my pleasures.”