“I knew him by his cigar,” said Marjory with a little laugh; not that she had any inclination to laugh, but that she had turned her back with a wild resolution upon the subjects that occupied her, determined at least for the moment to get rid of them. “It was improper, and he ought not to have been there smoking at two o’clock in the morning; but the sight of some one was a comfort to me.” “That is a strange way of convincing me of impropriety,” said Fanshawe, delighted, “of course I shall go on doing it all the days of my life. The scene was very wild, as wild as any I ever saw. How black the Firth was, and the sky, and how the surf boiled upon the rocks! It looked like Norway or Canada, rather than this sober well-to-do Fife.” “That is all climate, nothing but climate,” said Mr. Charles, “the thermometer has varied fifteen degrees since Sunday--fifteen degrees! it ‘is just astonishing. Of course anyone could see with half an eye that Sunday was too fine to last. Are you going to work, Marjory, my dear, as your father said?” “I am going out first for a breath of air,” she answered. She was almost gay in her eagerness to escape from herself, and to stave off the painful moment which was coming. She took Milly’s hand and ran round to the drawing-room where the windows opened upon the cliff. She went out into the morning sunshine, which fell full upon her uncovered head; the wind blew her hair about, waking in it gleams of richer colour which the sun found out. Nobody knew that it was a kind of desperation which roused Marjory. Her uncle looked at her puzzled and half disapproving, and shook his head. He thought it was a doubtful example she was setting before the servants, so soon after--and Fleming, who looked on very seriously, was of that opinion too.