But
each grew more happy, deeper and stronger.
He talked to her of the Roman Campagna, of the East and the desert....
As the hour closed he spoke directly of Ian. "That is myself now, as
Elspeth is myself now. I falter, I fail, but I go on to profounder
Oneness."
"Christ is born, then he grows up."
"May I see Ian's last letters?"
She put them in his hands. "They are very short. They speak almost
always of external things."
He read, then sat musing, his eyes upon the tree. "This last one--You
answered that it was not known where I was?"
"Yes. But he says here at the last, 'I feel it somewhere that he is on
his way to Scotland.'"
"I'll have to think it out."
"Every letter is objective like this. But for all that, I divine, in
the dark, a ferment.... As you see, we have not heard for months."
The laird of Glenfernie rode at last from Black Hill. It was
afternoon, white drifts of clouds in the sky, light and shadow moving
upon field and moor and distant, framing mountains. He rode by
Littlefarm and he called at the house gate for Robin Greenlaw. It
seemed that the latter was away in White Farm fields. The laird might
meet him riding home. A mile farther on he saw the gray horse crossing
the stream.
Glenfernie and Greenlaw, meeting, left each the saddle, went near to
embracing, sat at last by a stone wall in the late sunshine, and felt
a tide of liking, stronger, not weaker, than that of old days.
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