Well, her own eyes were moist—though that was but for a moment; for when she proceeded to walk slowly and meditatively back to the inn, her mind was busy with many things; and she began to think that she had not got any way near to the understanding of this man, whom she had treated in so familiar a fashion, as boatman, and companion, and gillie—almost as valet. What lay behind those eyes of his, that glowed with so strange a light at times, and seemed capable of reading her through and through, only that the slightly tremulous eyelids came down and veiled them, or that he turned away his head? And why this strain of pathos in a nature that seemed essentially joyous and glad and careless? Not only that, but in the several discussions with her father—occasionally becoming rather warm, indeed—Ronald had been invariably on the side of the landlord, as was naturally to be expected. He had insisted that the great bulk of the land given over to deer was of no possible use to any other living creature; he had maintained the right of the landlord to clear any portion of his property of sheep and forest it, if by so doing he could gain an increase of rental; he had even maintained the right of the landlord to eject non-paying tenants from holdings clearly not capable of supporting the ever-increasing families; and so forth. But was his feeling, after all, with the people—he himself being one of the people? His stout championship of the claims and privileges of Lord Ailine—that was not incompatible with a deeper sense of the cruelty of driving the poor people away from the land of their birth and the home of their childhood? His natural sentiment as a man was not to be overborne by the fact that he was officially a dependant on Lord Ailine? These and a good many other curious problems concerning him—and concerning his possible future—occupied her until she had got back to the snug little parlour; and there, as she found her father seated in front of the blazing fire, and engaged in getting through the mighty pile of newspapers and illustrated journals and magazines that had come by the previous day’s mail, she thought she might as well sit down and write a long letter to her bosom friend in Chicago, through whose intermediation these verses might discreetly be brought to the notice of Mr. Huysen. She had reasons for not asking any favour directly.