A little later Walter succeeded in getting Gabrielle alone again in a small, well-furnished room leading off the library—­a room in which she had passed many happy hours with him before he had gone abroad.  He had been in London reading for the Bar, but had spent a good deal of his time up in Perthshire, or at least all he possibly could.  At such times they were inseparable; but after he had been “called”—­there being no necessity for him to practise, he being heir to the estates—­he had gone to India and Japan “to broaden his mind,” as his father had explained.

“I wonder, Gabrielle,” he said hesitatingly, holding her hand as they stood at the open window—­“I wonder if you will forgive me if I put a question to you.  I—­I know I ought not to ask it,” he stammered; “but it is only because I love you so well, dearest, that I ask you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth!” echoed the girl, looking at him with some surprise, though turning just a trifle paler, he thought.  “The truth about what?”

“About that man James Flockart,” was his low, distinct reply.

“About him!  Why, my dear Walter,” she laughed, “whatever do you want to know about him?  You know all that I know.  We were agreed long ago that he is not a gentleman, weren’t we?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Don’t you recollect our talk at your house in London two years ago, soon after you came back from school?  Do you remember what you then told me?”

She flushed slightly at the recollection.  “I—­I ought not to have said that,” she exclaimed hurriedly.  “I was only a girl then, and I—­well, I didn’t know.”

“What you said has never passed my lips, dearest.  Only, I ask you again to-day to tell me honestly and frankly whether your opinion of him has in any way changed.  I mean whether you still believe what you then said.”

She was silent for a few moments.  Her lips twitched nervously, and her eyes stared blankly out of the window.  “No, I repeat what—­I—­said —­then,” she answered in a strange hoarse voice.

“And only you yourself suspect the truth?”

“You are the only person to whom I have mentioned it, and I have been filled with regret ever since.  I had no right to make the allegation, Walter.  I should have kept my secret to myself.”

“There was surely no harm in telling me, dearest,” he exclaimed, still holding her hand, and looking fixedly into those clear-blue, fathomless eyes so very dear to him.  “You know too well that I would never betray you.”

“But if he knew—­if that man ever knew,” she cried, “he would avenge himself upon me!  I know he would.”

“But what have you to fear, little one?” he asked, surprised at the sudden change in her.

“You know how my mother hates me, how they all detest me—­all except dear old dad, who is so terribly helpless, misled, defrauded, and tricked—­as he daily is—­by those about him.”

“I know, darling,” said the young man.  “I know it all only too well.  Trust in me;” and, bending, he kissed her softly upon the lips.