not
succeed in concealing either from the lady or me, "you may set your mind
at rest The child you mention has, from this day, what we may be calling
a godfather."

"Then the tale's true?" she said, stopping on the road, turning and
gazing with neither mirth nor warmth in her countenance.

M'Iver hesitated, and looked upon the woman to me as if I could help him
in the difficulty; but I must have seemed a clown in the very abjection
of my ignorance of what all this mystery was about He searched my face
and I searched my memory, and then I recollected that he had told me
before of Mistress Brown's suspicions of the paternity of the child.

"I could well wish your answer came more readily," said she again,
somewhat bitterly, "for then I know it would be denial."

"And perhaps untruth, too," said John, oddly. "This time it's a question
of honour, a far more complicated turn of circumstances than you can
fancy, and my answer takes time."

"Guilty!" she cried, "and you go like this. You know what the story is,
and your whole conduct in front of my charges shows you take the very
lightest view of the whole horrible crime."

"Say away, madame," said M'Iver, assuming an indifference his every
feature gave the lie to. "I'm no better nor no worse than the rest of
the world. That's all I'll say."

"You have said enough for me, then," said the girl.

"I think, Elrigmore, if you please, I'll not trouble you and your friend
to come farther with me now. I am obliged for your society so far."

She was gone before either of us could answer, leaving us like a pair of
culprits standing in the middle of the road. A little breeze fanned
her clothing, and they shook behind her as to be free from some
contamination. She had overtaken and joined a woman in front of her
before I had recovered from my astonishment M'Iver turned from
surveying her departure with lowered eyebrows, and gave me a look with
half-a-dozen contending thoughts in it.

"That's the end of it," said he, as much to himself as for my ear, "and
the odd thing of it again is that she never seemed so precious fine a
woman as when it was 'a bye wi' auld days and you,' as the Scots song
says."

"It beats me to fathom," I confessed. "Do I understand that you admitted
to the lady that you were the father of the child?"

"I admitted nothing," he said, cunningly, "if you'll take the trouble to
think again. I but let the lady have her own way, which most of her sex
general