'I'm afraid you won't see the Scottish hills,' shouted Mary, holding on
her little cloth hat.

She was obliged to shout at the top of her voice, though she was close
to Mr. Hammond's elbow, for that shrill screaming wind would have
drowned the voice of a stentor.

'Never mind the view,' replied Hammond in the same fortissimo, 'but I
really wish I hadn't brought you up here. If this fog should get any
worse, it may be dangerous.'

'The fog is sure to get worse,' said Mary, in a brief lull of the
hurly-burly, 'but there is no danger. I know every inch of the hill, and
I am not a bit afraid. I can guide you, if you will trust me.'

'My bravest of girls,' he exclaimed, looking down at her. 'Trust you!
Yes, I would trust my life to you--my soul--my honour--secure in your
purity and good faith.'

Never had eyes of living man or woman looked down upon her with such
tenderness, such fervent love. She looked up at him; looked with eyes
which, at first bewildered, then grew bold, and lost themselves, as it
were, in the dark grey depths of the eyes they met. The savage wind,
hustling and howling, blew her nearer to him, as a reed is blown against
a rock. Dark grey mists were rising round them like a sea; but had that
ever-thickening, ever-darkening vapour been the sea itself, and death
inevitable, Mary Haselden would have hardly cared. For in this moment
the one precious gift for which her soul had long been yearning had been
freely given to her. She knew all at once, that she was fondly loved by
that one man whom she had chosen for her idol and her hero.