Part 54 (2/2)

”What do you see?” Babbie cried in alarm, for he seemed to be gazing at the window.

”Only you,” he replied, himself again; ”I am coming with you.”

”You must let me go alone,” she entreated; ”if not for your own safety”--but it was only him she considered--”then for the sake of Lord Rintoul. Were you and I to be seen together now, his name and mine might suffer.”

It was an argument the minister could not answer save by putting his hands over his face; his distress made Babbie strong; she moved to the door, trying to smile.

”Go, Babbie!” Gavin said, controlling his voice, though it had been a smile more pitiful than her tears. ”G.o.d has you in His keeping; it is not His will to give me this to bear for you.”

They were now in the garden.

”Do not think of me as unhappy,” she said; ”it will be happiness to me to try to be all you would have me be.”

He ought to have corrected her. ”All that G.o.d would have me be,” is what she should have said. But he only replied, ”You will be a good woman, and none such can be altogether unhappy; G.o.d sees to that.”

He might have kissed her, and perhaps she thought so.

”I am--I am going now, dear,” she said, and came back a step because he did not answer; then she went on, and was out of his sight at three yards' distance. Neither of them heard the approaching dogcart.

”You see, I am bearing it quite cheerfully,” she said. ”I shall have everything a woman loves; do not grieve for me so much.”

Gavin dared not speak nor move. Never had he found life so hard; but he was fighting with the ign.o.ble in himself, and winning. She opened the gate, and it might have been a signal to the dogcart to stop. They both heard a dog barking, and then the voice of Lord Rintoul:

”That is a light in the window. Jump down, McKenzie, and inquire.”

Gavin took one step nearer Babbie and stopped. He did not see how all her courage went from her, so that her knees yielded, and she held out her arms to him, but he heard a great sob and then his name.

”Gavin, I am afraid.”

Gavin understood now, and I say he would have been no man to leave her after that; only a moment was allowed him, and it was their last chance on earth. He took it. His arm went round his beloved, and he drew her away from Nanny's.

McKenzie found both house and garden empty. ”And yet,” he said, ”I swear some one pa.s.sed the window as we sighted it.”

”Waste no more time,” cried the impatient earl. ”We must be very near the hill now. You will have to lead the horse, McKenzie, in this darkness; the dog may find the way through the broom for us.”

”The dog has run on,” McKenzie replied, now in an evil temper. ”Who knows, it may be with her now? So we must feel our way cautiously; there is no call for capsizing the trap in our haste.” But there was call for haste if they were to reach the gypsy encampment before Gavin and Babbie were made man and wife over the tongs.

The Spittal dogcart rocked as it dragged its way through the broom.

Rob Dow followed. The ten o'clock bell began to ring.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

WHILE THE TEN O'CLOCK BELL WAS RINGING.

_In the square and wynds--weavers in groups_:

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