and were
beating up against wind and tide for their island, under the lee of
which they had been laid to all the afternoon, she vouchsafed an
explanation--or at least as much of a vindication as Patsy ever
permitted herself.

"Stair Garland," she said, "listen to me; and you, Godfrey McCulloch,
take that Satanic leer off your face. You have no idea how unattractive
it makes you look! You should be framed and hung up to frighten naughty
children.

"I am sick of being looked after. I am weary of being educated and
leading-stringed and chaperoned. Now I am going to chaperon myself for
ever and ever. I told father I should do this if he pestered me with his
princesses. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick
of coddling--I hate Hanover Lodge. I hate all the things Uncle Julian
loves, except only some few books. I cannot even have little Miss Aline
put over me. It is too cruel to tag her round after me, jigging this way
and that like the skiff there in our wake. She was made and invented to
abide at Ladykirk, and to rule over Eelen Young and the brass
preserving-pans. Why, because I am a girl, should the poor lady be
traiked all over the world in an agony of dispeace? So I married you,
Stair. It is hard on you, I know. Being a gentleman you could not very
well refuse when I asked you before the minister--"

Here Stair made an indefinite noise in his throat, which, if he could
have spoken, would have been an eloquent statement-at-large of the state
of his affections. He cursed himself for his imbecility. Louis Raincy,
he felt sure, would have found the right thing to say--even the Poor
Scholar--not to say any of the fine gentlemen whom Patsy had left behind
in London. After all she had left them. That was one comfort. She had
come to save him. But what in the name of the prince of darkness was
that idiot of a Godfrey McCulloch grinning at? Surely there was nothing
so absolutely strange about the situation. The man they had seen was a
minister--the minister of a parish. He was in Geneva gown, and
bands--such as they were. His session clerk was with him. The kirk
register had been duly signed.

If that ugly, black-browed McCulloch would only stop grinning and take
himself off--perhaps even yet he could put the matter right.

"I only wanted you to know, before we land," said the clear-cut, faceted
voice of Patsy, ringing out the syllables like the pouring of little
diamonds into a thin wine-glass, "that