"Oh yes, quite well. Good-bye. I am off early to-morrow morning."
"Then we shall not see you again?"
"No," he said sadly, "perhaps never again. Birds of ill omen are never welcome—are they?"
"Oh! Don't call yourself that," she said. "Good-bye, Captain Fortescue."
He had left her, and was going towards the bridge, when he thought he heard her calling. He looked back, and saw that she was still standing at the gate with the lantern in her hand.
"Did you call, Miss Douglas?" he asked.
"Yes; I ought not to have brought you back, but I did want to thank you."
"I don't know why you should thank me."
"For being so good to mother," she said; and then she turned round and went up the hill, and he watched the light of her lantern until he saw it pass inside the door of the house.
What a wild night that was! Kenneth Fortescue slept very little, for the wind was howling in the chimneys of the old inn, rattling the badly fitting windows, sweeping down the narrow valley, and tearing with terrific force across the open country beyond. He lay listening to the wind, and thinking many troubled thoughts during the long hours of that wakeful night.