missed? Didn't I give him the key of the library, that
he might read and improve his mind? And look what comes of it!"

"Ye mean, sir," said Lizzy, quite innocently, "'at that's the w'y ye
ha'e dune wi' God, an' sae he winna heed ye?"

The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely been
talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was as sick and
helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace, stung in his pride at
least--perhaps in his conscience too, only he was not prepared to be
rebuked by a girl like her, who had--Well, he must let it pass: how much
better was he himself?

But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm and hold
her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation. "Ye'll ken Ma'colm
better some day, sir," she said.

"Well, Lizzy," returned the sick man, in a tone that but for feebleness
would have been indignant, "I have heard a good deal of the way women
_will_ stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, but you to stand
up for _him_ passes!"

"He's been the best friend I ever had," said Lizzy.

"Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?" cried the
factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of the reproof it
bore. "If it were not the dead of the night--"

"I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir," said Lizzy as the contingent
threat died away. "But ye maun lie still or I maun gang for the
mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' my wyte, 'cause I
cudna bide to hear sic things said o' Ma'colm."

"Do ye mean to tell me," persisted her charge, heedless of her
expostulation, "that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and left
you with a child you could ill provide for--and I well know never sent
you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may have done now--is
the best friend you ever had?"

"Noo God forgie ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a thing!" cried
Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him. "Ma'colm MacPhail's as clear o'
ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel'."

"Do ye daur tell _me_ he's no the father o' that same, lass?"

"_No_; nor never will be the father o' ony bairn whase mither's no his
wife!" said Lizzy, with burning cheeks but resolute voice.

The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, fell
back in silence, and neither of them spoke for what seemed to the
watcher a long time. When she ventured to look at him, he was asleep.

He lay in one of those troubl