d not bear to think
that I should have her. Poor devil, how could he help it? Maybe I
should have been the same. There was a time when I should have wondered
that a girl could have turned a strong man's head like that, but I knew
more about it now.

For a fortnight I saw nothing of Jim Horscroft, and then came the
Thursday which was to change the whole current of my life.

I had woke early that day, and with a little thrill of joy which is a
rare thing to feel when a man first opens his eyes. Edie had been
kinder than usual the night before, and I had fallen asleep with the
thought that maybe at last I had caught the rainbow, and that without
any imaginings or make-believes she was learning to love plain, rough
Jock Calder of West Inch. It was this thought, still at my heart, which
had given me that little morning chirrup of joy. And then I remembered
that if I hastened I might be in time for her, for it was her custom to
go out with the sunrise.

But I was too late. When I came to her door it was half-open and the
room empty. Well, thought I, at least I may meet her and have the
homeward walk with her. From the top of Corriemuir hill you may see all
the country round; so, catching up my stick, I swung off in that
direction. It was bright, but cold, and the surf, I remember, was
booming loudly, though there had been no wind in our parts for days.
I zigzagged up the steep pathway, breathing in the thin, keen morning
air, and humming a lilt as I went, until I came out, a little short of
breath, among the whins upon the top. Looking down the long slope of
the farther side, I saw Cousin Edie, as I had expected; and I saw Jim
Horscroft walking by her side.

They were not far away, but too taken up with each other to see me. She
was walking slowly, with the little petulant cock of her dainty head
which I knew so well, casting her eyes away from him, and shooting out a
word from time to time. He paced along beside her, looking down at her
and bending his head in the eagerness of his talk. Then as he said
something, she placed her hand with a caress upon his arm, and he,
carried off his feet, plucked her up and kissed her again and again.
At the sight I could neither cry out nor move, but stood, with a heart
of lead and the face of a dead man, staring down at them. I saw her
hand passed over his shoulder, and that his kisses were as welcome to
her as ever mine had been.

Then he set her down again, and I fo