"Ay."
"Weel, ye jist come to me, as ye hae done afore. I'm no sae gude at thae things as I am at the Greek; but I ken mair already nor ye'll ken whan ye ken a' 'at ye will ken. And that's nae flattery either to you or me, man."
With beating heart, Alec knocked the next day at Mr Fraser's door, and was shown into the drawing-room, where sat Kate alone. The moment he saw her, he knew that there was a gulf between them as wide as the Glamour in a spate. She received him kindly, nor was there anything in her manner or speech by which he could define an alteration; and yet, with that marvellous power of self-defence, that instinctive knowledge of spirituo-military engineering with which maidens are gifted, she had set up such a palisade between them, dug such a fosse, and raised such a rampart, that without knowing how the effect was produced, he felt that he could not approach her. It is strange how women can put out an invisible arm and push one off to an infinite removal.
With a miserable sense of cold exhaustion and aching disappointment, he left her. She shook hands with him warmly, was very sorry her uncle was out, and asked him whether he would not call again to-morrow, when he would certainly be at home? He thanked her in a voice that seemed to him not his own, while her voice appeared to him to come out of some far-off cave of the past. The cold frosty air received him as he stepped from the door, and its breath was friendly. If the winter would only freeze him to one of its icicles, and still that heart of his which would go on throbbing although there was no reason for it to throb any more! Yet had he not often found her different from what he had expected? And might not this be only one of her many changeful moods? Perhaps.
So feeling that he had nothing to do and only one thing to think about, he wandered further through the old burgh, past the lingering fragment of its once mighty cathedral, and down to the bridge which, with its one Gothic arch as old as the youth of Chaucer, spanned the channel, here deep and narrow, of the long-drawn Highland river. Beyond it lay wintry woods, clear-lined against the pale blue sky. Into these he wandered, and was going on, seeing nothing, thinking nothing, almost feeling nothing, when he heard a voice behind him.
"Hillo, bantam!" it cried; and Alec did not need to turn to know who called.
"I saw ye come oot o' Professor Fraser's," said Cupples, "and I thocht a bit dauner i' the caller air wad do me no ill; sae I jist cam' efter ye."
Then changing his tone, he added,
"Alec, man, haud a grip o' yersel'. Dinna tyne that Lowse onything afore ye lowse haud o' yersel'."
"What do you mean, Mr Cupples?" asked Alec, not altogether willing to understand him.