Mr. Dundas shrugged his shoulders. "Who can persuade a willful man
against his folly?" he said coldly. "You are following a marsh-light, my
boy, and if you do find it you will only be landed in a bog."
"If I find her I shall have found my reward," Alick answered with boyish
fervor. "It will be happiness enough for me if I can bring back one
smile to her face or lighten one hour of its sorrow."
"Let well alone," said Mr. Dundas; but Alick answered, "Not till it is
well; and God will help me."
Whereupon the interview ended, and Alick left the house, feeling
something as one of the knights of old might have felt when he had vowed
himself to the quest of the Holy Grail.
When Mr. Dundas came home, naturally the families called, as in duty
bound and by inclination led. Excitement concerning Ford House was at
its height, for there were two things to keep it alive--the one to see
how the bride and bridegroom looked, the other to try and pick up
something definite about Leam. And among the rest came Mr. Gryce, with
his floating white locks falling about his bland cherubic face, his mild
blue eyes with their trick of turning red on small provocation, and his
lisping manner of speech, ingenuous, interrogatory, and knowing nothing
when interrogated in his turn--somehow gleaning full ears wherever he
passed, and dropping not even a solitary stalk of straw in return. He
expressed his sorrow that he had not seen lately his young friend, Miss
Dundas.
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