er in no common sense. It's beyond
mending that you cannot now be separated without such injury to you both
as I would not like to look upon. It's beyond mending, Finlay, because
it is one of those things that God has made. But it is not beyond
marring, and I charge you to look well what you are about in connection
with it."

A flash of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young man's sombre eyes
as the phrases fell. To the minister they were mere forcible words;
to Finlay they were soft rain in a famished land. Then he looked again
heavily at the pattern of the carpet.

"Would you have me marry Advena Murchison?" he said, with a kind of
shamed yielding to the words.

"I would--and no other. Man, I saw it from the beginning!" exclaimed the
Doctor. "I don't say it isn't an awkward business. But at least there'll
be no heartbreak in Scotland. I gather you never said a word to the
Bross lady on the subject, and very few on any other. You tell me you
left it all with that good woman, your aunt, to arrange after you left.
Do you think a creature of any sentiment would have accepted you on
those terms? Not she. So far as I can make out, Miss Cameron is just a
sensible, wise woman that would be the first to see the folly in this
business if she knew the rights of it. Come, Finlay, you're not such a
great man with the ladies--you can't pretend she has any affection for
you."

The note of raillery in the Doctor's voice drew Finlay's brows together.

"I don't know," he said, "whether I have to think of her affections, but
I do know I have to think of her dignity, her confidence, and her belief
in the honourable dealing of a man whom she met under the sanction of a
trusted roof. The matter may look light here; it is serious there. She
has her circle of friends; they are acquainted with her engagement. She
has made all her arrangements to carry it out; she has disposed of her
life. I cannot ask her to reconsider her lot because I have found a
happier adjustment for mine."

"Finlay," said Dr Drummond, "you will not be known in Bross or anywhere
else as a man who has jilted a woman. Is that it?"

"I will not be a man who has jilted a woman."

"There is no sophist like pride. Look at the case on its merits. On the
one side a disappointment for Miss Cameron. I don't doubt she's counting
on coming, but at worst a worldly disappointment. And the very grievous
humiliation for you of writing to tell her that you have made a mista