"_Phoca vitulina_; or, Common Seal." Yet no magician's wand could have been more powerful in transformation--say, rather translation--than the sight of the creature so designated was to Paul Macleod. In the twinkling of an eye the London haze--that condensed essence of millions of men, women, and children, struggling confusedly for breath--had passed from him, and he was in a new heaven and a new earth. A boat was rocking idly on the summer sea, the blue clouds were sailing overhead, the world, its ways and works, were beyond the rampart of encircling hills, while a girl, with clear bright eyes, leant against the rudder. "Why didn't you shoot, Captain Macleod?" He could hear the odd little tremor in her voice, as she gave the challenge, and feel the dim surprise of his own answer: "I never thought of it!" Then, with a rush, the one side of his nature challenged the other. Why--why had he done these things? Why had he given up paradise? Had he not been happy? In very truth, had he even thought of the world and its ways, of himself and his instincts, when he was beside her? Yet, what a return had he not made to this girl who had taught him to forget these things. Had he not in a way taught her to know them? Had he not roused in her something, blameless enough, God knows! in its way, beautiful enough, though of the earth earthy, compared to that other strange comradeship, in which there seemed no possibility of passion, no sense of sex. In truth, he had taught her to love him as women and men will love to the end of all things. Taught her, and left her to face it alone--as he had left Jeanie Duncan long years ago. The unbidden remembrance brought a new shame with it for that old offence, even while it intensified the sudden remorse he felt for the present one; since Jeanie, in all her sweet maidenhood, had never seemed so hedged about from evil as this Brynhild, whose very womanhood had been hidden beneath her glittering armour of mail. That he should have thought these things showed the strain of romance, the touch of mysticism, which was in him by right of his race, and though, as ever, he chafed against these things, he could not escape from them, or from the self-contempt which took possession of him. Ever since the night when he had said good-bye, as he had boasted, to the best part of him, there had been something to prevent his realising the extent of his degradation. First, the relief of certainty, bringing with it a very real content; then, the anxiety for the child, bringing out all the kindliness of his nature--finally, the knowledge that he was not, after all, so mercenary. But now he was defenceless against his own worldliness, against the memory of his wanton insult to Marjory--for it was an insult, nothing less.