“Let you!” exclaimed Babbie, now justly incensed.  “You did it yourself.  I was very angry.”

“No, you were not.”

“I am not allowed to say that even?” asked the Egyptian.  “Tell me something I may say, then, and I will repeat it after you.”

“I have something to say to you,” Gavin told her, after a moment’s reflection; “yes, and there is something I should like to hear you repeat after me, but not to-night.”

“I don’t want to hear what it is,” Babbie said, quickly, but she knew what it was, and even then, despite the new pain at her heart, her bosom swelled with pride because this man still loved her.  Now she wanted to run away with his love for her before he could take it from her, and then realising that this parting must be forever, a great desire filled her to hear him put that kiss into words, and she said, faltering: 

“You can tell me what it is if you like.”

“Not to-night,” said Gavin.

“To-night, if at all,” the gypsy almost entreated.

“To-morrow, at Nanny’s,” answered Gavin, decisively:  and this time he remembered without dismay that the morrow was the Sabbath.

In the fairy tale the beast suddenly drops his skin and is a prince, and I believed it seemed to Babbie that some such change had come over this man, her plaything.

“Your lantern is shining on my mother’s window,” were the words that woke her from this discovery, and then she found herself yielding the lantern to him.  She became conscious vaguely that a corresponding change was taking place in herself.

“You spoke of taking me to your mother,” she said, bitterly.

“Yes,” he answered at once, “to-morrow”; but she shook her head, knowing that to-morrow he would be wiser.

“Give me the lantern,” she said, in a low voice, “I am going back to Nanny’s now.”

“Yes,” he said, “we must set out now, but I can carry the lantern.”

“You are not coming with me!” she exclaimed, shaking herself free of his hand.

“I am coming,” he replied, calmly, though he was not calm.  “Take my arm, Babbie.”

She made a last effort to free herself from bondage, crying passionately, “I will not let you come.”

“When I say I am coming,” Gavin answered between his teeth, “I mean that I am coming, and so let that be an end of this folly.  Take my arm.”

“I think I hate you,” she said, retreating from him.

“Take my arm,” he repeated, and, though her breast was rising rebelliously, she did as he ordered, and so he escorted her from the garden.  At the foot of the field she stopped, and thought to frighten him by saying, “What would the people say if they saw you with me now?”

“It does not much matter what they would say,” he answered, still keeping his teeth together as if doubtful of their courage.  “As for what they would do, that is certain; they would put me out of my church.”