Having put Kelpie up, and fed and bedded her, Malcolm took his way to the Seaton, full of busily anxious thought. Things had taken a bad turn, and he was worse off for counsel than before. The enemy was in the house with his sister, and he had no longer any chance of judging how matters were going, as now he never rode out with her. But at least he could haunt the house. He would run, therefore, to his grandfather, and tell him that he was going to occupy his old quarters at the House that night.
Returning directly, and passing, as had been his custom, through the kitchen to ascend the small corkscrew stair the servants generally used, he encountered Mrs. Courthope, who told him that her ladyship had given orders that her maid, who had come with Lady Bellair, should have his room. He was at once convinced that Florimel had done so with the intention of banishing him from the house, for there were dozens of rooms vacant, and many of them more suitable. It was a hard blow. How he wished for Mr. Graham to consult! And yet Mr. Graham was not of much use where any sort of plotting was wanted. He asked Mrs. Courthope to let him have another room, but she looked so doubtful that he withdrew his request and went back to his grandfather.
It was Saturday, and not many of the boats would go fishing. Among the rest, Findlay's would not leave the harbor till Sunday was over, and therefore Malcolm was free. But he could not rest, and would go line-fishing. "Daddy," he said, "I'm gaein oot to catch a haddick or sae to oor denner the morn. Ye micht jist sit doon upo' ane o' the Boar's Taes an' tak a play o' yer pipes. I'll hear ye fine, an' it'll du me guid."
The Boar's Toes were two or three small rocks that rose out of the sand near the end of the dune. Duncan agreed right willingly, and Malcolm, borrowing some lines and taking the Psyche's dinghy, rowed out into the bay.
The sun was down, the moon was up, and he had caught more fish than he wanted. His grandfather had got tired and gone home, and the fountain of his anxious thoughts began to flow more rapidly. He must go ashore. He must go up to the House: who could tell what might not be going on there? He drew in his line, purposing to take the best of the fish to Miss Horn and some to Mrs. Courthope, as in the old days.
The Psyche still lay on the sands, and he was rowing the dinghy toward her, when, looking round to direct his course, he thought he caught a glimpse of some one seated on the slope of the dune. Yes, there was some one there, sure enough. The old times rushed back on his memory: could it be Florimel? Alas! it was not likely she would now be wandering about alone. But if it were! Then for one endeavor more to rouse her slumbering conscience! He would call up all the associations of the last few months she had spent in the place, and, with the spirit of her father, as it were, hovering over her, conjure her, in his name, to break with Liftore.
He rowed swiftly to the Psyche, beached and drew up the dinghy, and climbed the dune. Plainly enough, it was a lady who sat there. It might be one from the upper town enjoying the lovely night: it might be Florimel, but how could she have got away, or wished to get away, from her newly-arrived guests? The voices of several groups of walkers came from the high-road behind the dune, but there was no other figure to be seen all along the sands. He drew nearer. The lady did not move. If it were Florimel, would she not know him as he came, and would she wait for him?
He drew nearer still. His heart gave a great throb. Could it be, or was the moon weaving some hallucination in his troubled brain? If it was a phantom, it was that of Lady Clementina: if but modeled of the filmy vapors of the moonlight, and the artist his own brain, the phantom was welcome as joy. His spirit seemed to soar aloft in the yellow air and hang hovering over and around her, while his body stood rooted to the spot, like one who fears, by moving nigher, to lose the lovely vision of a mirage. She sat motionless, her gaze on the sea. Malcolm bethought himself that she could not know him in his fisher-dress, and must take him for some rude fisherman staring at her. He must go at once, or approach and address her. He came forward at once. "My lady!" he said.
She did not start, neither did she speak. She did not even turn her face. She rose first, then turned and held out her hand. Three steps more and he had it in his, and his eyes looked straight into hers. Neither spoke. The moon shone full on Clementina's face. There was no illumination fitter for that face than the moonlight, and to Malcolm it was lovelier than ever. Nor was it any wonder it should seem so to him, for certainly never had the eyes in it rested on his with such a lovely and trusting light in them. A moment she stood, then slowly sank again upon the sand and drew her skirts about her with a dumb show of invitation. The place where she sat was a little terraced hollow in the slope, forming a convenient seat. Malcolm saw, but could not believe she actually made room for him to sit beside her—alone with her in the universe. It was too much: he dared not believe it. And now, by one of those wondrous duplications which are not always at least born of the fancy, the same scene in which he had found Florimel thus seated on the slope of the dune appeared to be passing again through Malcolm's consciousness, only instead of Florimel was Clementina, and instead of the sun was the moon. And creature of the sunlight as Florimel was, bright and gay and beautiful, she paled into a creature of the cloud beside this maiden of the moonlight, tall and stately, silent and soft and grand.
Again she made a movement. This time he could not doubt her invitation. It was as if her soul made room in her unseen world for him to enter and sit beside her. But who could enter heaven in his work-day garments?