“And, therefore, would scorn me.”

“Try her,” said the doctor, drily.  “Her father and mother, as I know, married on a ten-pound note.  But if I am wrong again, I must adopt the popular view in Thrums.  It is a Glasgow lady after all?  Man, you needn’t look indignant at hearing that the people are discussing your intended.  You can no more stop it than a doctor’s orders could keep Lang Tammas out of church.  They have discovered that she sends you flowers twice every week.”

“They never reach me,” answered Gavin, then remembered the holly and winced.

“Some,” persisted the relentless doctor, “even speak of your having been seen together; but of course, if she is a Glasgow lady, that is a mistake.”

“Where did they see us?” asked Gavin, with a sudden trouble in his throat.

“You are shaking,” said the doctor, keenly, “like a medical student at his first operation.  But as for the story that you and the lady have been seen together, I can guess how it arose.  Do you remember that gypsy girl?”

The doctor had begun by addressing the fire, but he suddenly wheeled round and fired his question in the minister’s face.  Gavin, however, did not even blink.

“Why should I have forgotten her?” he replied, coolly.

“Oh, in the stress of other occupations.  But it was your getting the money from her at the Kaims for Nanny that I was to speak of.  Absurd though it seems, I think some dotard must have seen you and her at the Kaims, and mistaken her for the lady.”

McQueen flung himself back in his chair to enjoy this joke.

“Fancy mistaking that woman for a lady!” he said to Gavin, who had not laughed with him.

“I think Nanny has some justification for considering her a lady,” the minister said, firmly.

“Well, I grant that.  But what made me guffaw was a vision of the harum-scarum, devil-may-care little Egyptian mistress of an Auld Licht manse!”

“She is neither harum-scarum nor devil-may-care,” Gavin answered, without heat, for he was no longer a distracted minister.  “You don’t understand her as I do.”

“No, I seem to understand her differently.

“What do you know of her?”

“That is just it,” said the doctor, irritated by Gavin’s coolness.  “I know she saved Nanny from the poor-house, but I don’t know where she got the money.  I know she can talk fine English when she chooses, but I don’t know where she learned it.  I know she heard that the soldiers were coming to Thrums before they knew of their destination themselves, but I don’t know who told her.  You who understand her can doubtless explain these matters?”

“She offered to explain them to me,” Gavin answered, still unmoved, “but I forbade her.”

“Why?”

“It is no business of yours, doctor.  Forgive me for saying so.”

“In Thrums,” replied McQueen, “a minister’s business is everybody’s business.  I have often wondered who helped her to escape from the soldiers that night.  Did she offer to explain that to you?”