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.