‘What do you think?’ cried Cecilia, facing her suddenly, ‘do you think anything could keep me back? Do you think I have ever ceased hoping or praying? Don’t torment me--I have enough to bear. Come, let me see Whanland. Show me everything, dear Granny, before I go. I shall look at it and never forget it; all my life I shall remember it. Come.’ The two went from room to room, Granny leading the way. Cecilia’s eyes devoured everything, trying to stamp each detail on her mind. They went through the lower rooms, and upstairs, their steps echoing in the carpetless passages. There was little to see but the heavy four-post beds, a few high-backed chairs which still stood in their places, and the mantelpieces carved with festoon and thyrsus. They went up to the attics and into the garret; the pictures had come back to the place in which Gilbert had first found them. ‘Yon’s the Laird’s mother,’ said Granny, turning Clementina’s portrait to the light, ‘she’s bonnie, puir thing.’ ‘Was that like her?’ ‘The very marrows o’ her,’ replied she. The mother Gilbert had never seen and the bride he had never married were come face to face. The living woman looked at the painted one, searching for some trace of resemblance to the man from whom she had divided her; it was too dark for her to see the little box in Clementina’s hand. There was something in her bearing which recalled Gilbert, something in the brows and the carriage of the head. ‘Come away,’ she said at last, ‘I must go home now. I shall always thank you for showing me Whanland.’ They went downstairs and she stood on the doorstep while Granny went to the stable for her horse; the light was beginning to change; she would have to ride fast to reach Fullarton before it went. To-morrow she was to leave for Edinburgh and her return would only take place a few days before the wedding. A page in her life was turning down. She was to go to London with her husband, and, in a few months, they were to come back to settle in a place in Roxburghshire belonging to Sir Thomas Fordyce. The east coast would soon fade away from her like one of its own mists; the voice of the North Sea, which came faintly from the shore, was booming a farewell, for the tide was coming in beyond the bents. Before she turned away she leaned down from her saddle. ‘Someday,’ she said, ‘when--if--Mr. Speid comes back, tell him that I came here and that----’ But she could not go on and rode down the short approach without ending her sentence. ‘Good-bye!’ she called at the gate, waving her hand.