The escarpments of the cliffs sank away beneath him into the chill turmoil of the winter sea. He had been sitting on a flat tomb, one of the few cut in stone. The yellow fog had vanished. The moors spread away vague and simple, the fine wreath-curves of the snow only interrupted here and there by the brutal rigidity of the tall stone dykes with the easterly snow-blast still clinging in the chinks and stuffing the crevices. Everything was colourless, the ground of a bluish lilac, fading imperceptibly into a livid sky. Still half-dazed, Stair looked about him, Patsy's letter in his hand, surprised to find himself out there and alone. The written characters danced before his eyes, and it was only the strongest sense of duty which turned his face towards the Bothy and Julian Wemyss. He was carrying, he knew it well, a letter from the Princess, enclosing and doubtless supporting a demand for the hand of Patsy Ferris. Whitefoot slunk along at his master's side, his tail and ears eloquently drooped, and his doleful aspect reflecting admirably the mood of his master. But Stair set his teeth and went forward. He found his breakfast waiting for him, and Julian Wemyss took the letter with his usual grateful urbanity. He was not slow in noticing the depressed state of his companion, though, naturally, he put it down to his having been kept waiting so long in the raw fog. "I suppose Jean could not come exactly to the moment?" he said, his letter still unopened in his hand. "No," said Stair, "she was waiting for me, but I came back by the cliffs and the Sailors' Graveyard." Julian, who knew that Stair never did anything without a reason, asked him if he had found everything clear from the lookout. "Oh, all clear," said Stair, and sat down to make a pretence of breakfasting. But he could not keep his eyes from wandering in the direction of Julian Wemyss, who, seated in the great chair between the window and the fire, was presently bending his brows over the packet he had received. Eight sheets of a fine and light handwriting like that of the address--from the Princess Elsa, of that there could be no question. Julian read on and on, wrapped up in the daintily written words, unconscious of the thick enclosure on paper like parchment, which had slipped down on the floor of the Bothy. Stair could see the huge black downstrokes of the superscription. He stopped eating and began to clear away. Julian looked up from his reading at the sudden clattering of pottery. "Hold there," he said, "it is my day--you must not forget. I claim my rights." But Stair continued with a smile to prepare for that part of the work which is the curse of every bachelor menage--the washing-up after. "I think," he said quietly, "that you will have enough to do with your correspondence--I take everything upon me for to-day. Your pardon, Mr. Wemyss, but I am afraid you have dropped something!" "Ah, so I have--it is nothing--I am much obliged to you."