“By Jove, what a magnificent girl!” said one to the other just before they were out of hearing.  There was that of consciousness in his tone which betrayed that he thought his own accents and choice words were well worthy her attention.

Eliza turned her back to the direction in which the strangers had gone, thus covering the spare man to whom she was talking from their backward glances.  Bates, who was looking up at her face with his heart-hunger in his eyes, saw a look of contempt for the passing remark flit across her face, and because of the fond craving of his own heart, his sympathy, strangely enough, went out to the young man who had spoken, rather than to her sentiment of contempt.  The angel of human loves alone could tell why John Bates loved this girl after all that had passed, but he did love her.

And perceiving now that she had told what she had to tell, he turned his mind to that something that lay on his mind to say to her.  With the burden of the thought he rose up again from his rude seat, and he held up his head to look at her as with effort; she was so tall, that he still must needs look up.

“All’s said that need be said, Sissy, between us two.”  His voice was almost hard because he would not betray his wistfulness.  “Ye have chosen your own way o’ life, and I willna raise a cry to alter it; I’m no fit for that.  If I could shape ye to my pleasure, I see now I’d make a poor thing of it.  Ye can do better for yourself if—­if”—­his square jaw seemed almost to tremble—­“if ye’ll have a heart in ye, lassie.  Forgive me if I seem to instruct ye, for I’ve no thought in me now that I could make ye better if I tried.”

He stopped again, and she saw his weak frame moving nervously; she thought it was for want of breath.

“You’re awfully ill, Mr. Bates,” she said, in dulness repeating words that she seemed to have got by heart.

Her stupid pity stung him into further speech.

“Oh, lassie, it’s not because I’m fond of ye that I say it, for what does it matter about me, but because of all the men in the world that love women.  It’s God’s voice through them to you; and (although I can’t rightly frame it into words) because God set men and women in families, and gave them to have affections, I tell ye the soul in which the pride o’ life, or pleasure, or the like o’ that, takes the place of the affections is a lost soul.”  Again his harsh mouth trembled, and the words came with effort.  “Sissy Cameron, ye’ve not known a mother nor a sister, and your father was hard, and I who loved ye was worse than a brute, and I can’t rightly say what I would; but when I’m gone, look round ye; lassie, at the best women ye know that are wives and mothers, and if ye can’t greet at the things they greet at, and if ye laugh at things they don’t laugh at, and if ye don’t fear to do the things they fear, then, even if your cleverness should make ye queen o’ the whole world, God pity ye!”