“Mr. Welsh,” said the young man calmly, “I cannot, even though I be willing, do this thing.  My heart and life, my honour and word, are too deeply engaged for me to go back.  At whatever cost to myself, I must keep tryst and pledge with the girl who has trusted me, and who for me has to-night suffered things whose depths of pain and shame I know not yet.”

“Then,” said the minister sternly, “you and I must part.  My duty is done.  If you refuse my appeal, you are no true son of the Marrow kirk, and no candidate that I can recommend for her ministry.  Moreover, to keep you longer in my house and at my board were tacitly to encourage you in your folly.”

“It is quite true,” replied Ralph, unshaken and undaunted, “that I may be as unfit as you say for the office and ministry of the Marrow kirk.  It is, indeed, only as I have thought for a long season.  If that be so, then it were well that I should withdraw, and leave the place for some one worthier.”

“I wonder to hear ye, Ralph Peden, your father’s son,” said the minister, “you that have been colleged by the shillings and sixpences of the poor hill folk.  How will ye do with these?”

“I will pay them back,” said Ralph.

“Hear ye, man:  can ye pay back the love that hained and saved to send them to Edinburgh?  Can ye pay back the prayers and expectations that followed ye from class to class, rejoicing in your success, praying that the salt of holiness might be put for you into the fountains of earthly learning?  Pay back, Ralph Peden?—­I wonder sair that ye are not shamed!”

Indeed, Ralph was in a sorrowful quandary.  He knew that it was all true, and he saw no way out of it without pain and grief to some.  But the thought of Winsome’s cry came to him, heard in the lonesome night.  That appeal had severed him in a moment from all his old life.  He could not, though he were to lose heaven and earth, leave her now to reproach and ignominy.  She had claimed him only in her utter need, and he would stand good, lover and friend to be counted on, till the world should end.

“It is true what you say,” said Ralph; “I mourn for it every word, but I cannot and will not submit my conscience and my heart to the keeping even of the Marrow kirk.”

“Ye should have thought on that sooner,” interjected the minister grimly.

“God gave me my affections as a sacred trust.  This also is part of my religion.  And I will not, I cannot in any wise give up hope of winning this girl whom I love, and whom you above all others ought surely to love.”

“Then,” said the minister, rising solemnly with his hand outstretched as when he pronounced the benediction, “I, Allan Welsh, who love you as my son, and who love my daughter more than ten daughters who bear no reproach, tell you, Ralph Peden, that I can no longer company with you.  Henceforth I count you as a rebel and a stranger.  More than self, more than life, more than child or wife, I, sinner as I am, love the honour and discipline of the kirk of the Marrow.  Henceforth you and I are strangers.”