The professor glanced at him with a sharp, quizzical look under his eyebrows. He seemed as if he were about to say something, and then thought better of it and did not. Perhaps he also had had his illusions.
As Ralph was going to his room that night Kezia met him at the head of the stairs. She came like a flash from nowhere in particular.
"Good-night, Ralph," she said; "give your Winsome a kiss from me— the new kind—like this!"
Then Kezia vanished, and Ralph was left wondering, with his candle in his hand.
CHAPTER XL.
A TRIANGULAR CONVERSATION.
It was the day of the fast before the Communion in the Dullarg. The services of the day were over, and Allan Welsh, the minister of the Marrow kirk, was resting in his study from his labours. Manse Bell came up and knocked, inclining her ear as she did so to catch the minister's low-toned reply.
"Mistress Winifred Charteris frae the Craig Ronald to see ye, sir."
Allan Welsh commanded his emotion without difficulty—what of it he felt—as indeed he had done for many years.
He rose, however, with his hand on the table as though for support, as Winsome came in. He received her in silence, bending over her hand with a certain grave reverence.