Andrew Halliday had not spent a pleasant summer, and the winter closed in upon him with still less consolation. His love, his ambition, and all his hopes were centred in Joyce, and his mind was greatly distracted from those occupations which hitherto had filled his life. He no longer took the satisfaction he once had done in perfecting the school at Comely Green, in pushing on his show pupils, and straining every nerve for the approbation of the inspectors, and to acquire the reputation of the best school in the district. All his pleasure in the nice schoolhouse, which he had once inspected with such bright hopes, thinking what a home Joyce would make of it, what a place it would be, superior to all other schoolhouses, under her hands, which embellished everything—was gone. And even his Shakespeare class, and all the intellectual enthusiasms in which he had been stimulated by her, and which were the pride of his life and buoyed him up, with that sense of culture and superiority which is one of the most ineffable and delightful of human sensations, failed to support him now. For that beatific condition requires calm, and Andrew was no longer calm. He kept looking night and day for a summons into higher spheres. He dreamed of headmasterships in the ‘South’ which would be opened to him; of noble English schools where every boy was a little lord, and for which his own intellectual gifts, apart from any vain paraphernalia of university degrees, would, backed by Colonel Hayward’s influence, make him eligible. It may seem strange that a man of any education should have believed in anything so preposterous; but Halliday was very ignorant of the world, though he was entirely unaware of that fact, and had no experience out of his own narrow circle. Little as this is recognised, it is nevertheless true that a clever man in his position is capable of misunderstandings and mistakes which would be impossible to a dolt in a higher sphere. He did not
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 know that he had as little chance of becoming a headmaster in a great school, by dint even of the greatest of natural gifts, as of becoming Prime Minister—far less, indeed, for political genius might force a way in the one direction, while the most exalted intellectualism would do nothing in the other. Andrew, bewitched by hope and aspiration, and the novel and intoxicating sense of having ‘friends’ in high places, whose greatest object in life must be his advancement, believed and hoped everything which the wildest fancy could conceive.
This made his life much less satisfactory to him in the general, and reduced the efficiency of the parish school of Comely Green, the success of which was less to him than it had ever been, and its routine less interesting. As for the house, and even the new furniture he had bought, he looked at them with scorn, almost with disgust. What was the little parlour, which was all that a set of prejudiced heritors allowed to the schoolmaster, in comparison with the lovely old-fashioned mansions which he had seen described in books, and which were full of every luxury which a headmaster could desire? This hope, which at first was almost a certainty, of better things, made life as it was very distasteful to Andrew. For the first three months there was scarcely a day when he did not expect to hear something. When he went out he thought it possible that a letter, or better, a telegram, might be waiting for him when he came back—and never stranger approached the school, that his heart did not beat expectant of the messenger who should bring him news of his promotion. When the inspector came for his annual examination, Andrew thought that there was something particular about all that he said and looked, and that this official was testing him and his success, to see how he would do for the higher sphere which was opening to receive him. The inspector happened to have letters to post as he passed through the village, one with the mystic H.M.S. printed upon it, and the unfortunate schoolmaster felt his heart beat, believing that it contained his character, his certificate, the description of himself, which would justify Government in translating him to a higher and a better sphere; and in this suppressed excitement and expectation he passed his life.
However, when the summer had given place to autumn a curious thing occurred to Andrew. Joyce’s letters, which had been short but very regular, and exceedingly nicely written, and so expressed as to trouble his mind with no doubts—for, indeed, Andrew was scarcely capable of doubting the faith of a girl who had the privilege of being chosen for his mate—suddenly stopped.
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 They had come weekly—an arrangement with which he was satisfied—and it was not until for the second time the usual day came and brought him no letter that he began to think her silence strange. When he heard from Janet, whom he visited regularly, with great honesty and faithfulness to his promise—though, as a matter of fact, he was not anxious to be seen to be on terms of intimacy with such very lowly people—that Joyce had gone abroad with her father, this seemed a not inadequate excuse for her. Andrew’s heart swelled with the thought that to him, too, the possibility might soon come of going abroad for his holidays—a dignity and splendour which in anticipation raised him to a kind of ecstasy.
And for a time this satisfied him fully. But time went on, and Joyce, he knew, returned, and yet no communication came. He could not think why this should be, especially as Janet went on receiving letters, of which she would read extracts with a scarcely suppressed sense of superiority which was very galling to the schoolmaster. ‘Ou ay, Andrew; come ben and tak’ a seat; there’s been a letter. She never lets an eight days pass without one—she’s just as regular as the clock,’ Janet would say, not unwilling to inflict that little humiliation; and then she would read to him a little bit here and there. If it had not been for that still lively hope, Andrew would have been seriously angry and anxious: and even when another month had stolen away, he was, though greatly surprised, yet still willing to believe that she was putting off in order to give him a delightful surprise at last,—in order to be able to tell him of some wonderful appointment which she was in the meantime straining every energy to obtain. But there was no doubt that this constant suspense did undermine his tranquillity. At the last, his temper began to suffer; he began to grow jealous and irritable. When the Captain came back to Bellendean and went to see Janet, and talked to her for hours about her child—as the old woman reported with as much pride as her dignity permitted—Andrew took heart again for the moment, expecting nothing less than that a similar visit should be paid to him, who certainly, he thought, was much more in the Captain’s way—far more able to hold a conversation with him on topics either public or individual than an old ploughman and his wife. But the Captain never came; and there was no letter, no message, nothing but silence, and a darkness in which not only the headmastership but Joyce—who, to do him justice, was more to him than any promotion—seemed to be vanishing away.
This blank was made all the greater from the fact that Janet
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 in the meantime never failed to get her letter. Joyce wrote long tender letters to her beloved granny, telling her everything—and nothing; a fact which the keen-witted old woman had long ago discovered, but which naturally she kept to herself, not even confiding to Peter—whose chief amusement it was to hear these letters read over and over—the deficiency which she felt. Joyce described all her travels with a fulness which was delightful to the old people. ‘Ye can read me yon bit again about the bells and the auld man in the kirk,’ Peter would say; or, ‘Yon about the muckle hills and the glaciers—as daftlike a name as ever I heard; for there’s no’ mony glaziers, I’m thinking, yonder away—na, nor plumbers either.’ Janet fumbled for her spectacles, and got the letter out of a work-box which had been a present from Joyce, and prepared to read with every appearance of enthusiasm; but she said to herself, ‘She can tell me about glaciers and snawy hills, but no’ a word about hersel’.’ It is doubtful, however, whether Andrew would have perceived this want any more than Peter. He would have been satisfied with letters about the glaciers and all the wonders she was seeing; but to have that information only at second-hand was hard upon him, and it was hard to be left out. Even if this silence should be caused by her desire to give him a delightful surprise—even if she were indeed waiting from week to week always expecting to have that piece of news to tell him—even in that case it was very hard to bear.
He came to the cottage one evening when the early winter had set in. The days had grown short and the nights long. The house of Bellendean stood out with a half-naked distinctness among the bare trees, and every path was thick with fallen leaves. Through the village street the wind was careering as though pursuing some one, and breathing with a long sough that told of coming rain among the houses. A dreary night, with little light and little comfort in it—not a night to come out for pleasure. Andrew Halliday had brought a lantern to light him on various parts of his long walk, and he went in with a ............