he face. The great thing, perhaps, was to speak of it while still
they could give themselves leave; a day would arrive, they acknowledged
with averted eyes, when dumbness would be more becoming. Meanwhile, Mrs
Murchison would have found it hard to sustain her charge against them
that they talked of nothing but books and authors; the philosophy of
life, as they were intensely creating it, was more entrancing than
any book or any author. Simply and definitely, and to their own
satisfaction, they had abandoned the natural demands of their state;
they lived in its exaltation and were far from accidents. Deep in both
of them was a kind of protective nobility; I will not say it cost them
nothing, but it turned the scenes between them into comedy of the better
sort, the kind that deserves the relief of stone or bronze. Advena,
had she heard it, would have repelled Dr Drummond's warning with
indignation. If it were so possible to keep their friendship on an
unfaltering level then, with the latitude they had, what danger could
attend them later, when the social law would support them, divide them,
protect them? Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked grimly on, and from
November to March found no need to invite Mr Finlay to occupy the pulpit
of Knox Church.

They had come to full knowledge that night of their long walk in the
dark together; but even then, in the rush and shock and glory of
it, they had held apart; and their broken avowals had crossed with
difficulty from one to the other. The whole fabric of circumstance was
between them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we know,
had not reduced it. They gave it great credit as a barrier; I suppose
because it kept them out of each other's arms. It had done that.

It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should continue upon
terms of happy debt to one another, the balance always changing, the
account never closed and rendered. She no doubt felt that she might
impose the terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice,
and knew that she had been mistress of the situation long before he
was aware of it. He agreed with joy and with misgiving; he saw with
enthusiasm her high conception of their alliance, but sometimes
wondered, poor fellow, whether he was right in letting it cover him.
He came to the house as he had done before, as often as he could, and
reproached himself that he could not, after all, come very often.

That they should discuss their r