“Not to me.”

“Yes, to you,” he answered.  “Babbie, you will return to the Spittal now, and tell Lord Rintoul everything.”

“If you wish it.”

“Not because I wish it, but because it is right.  He must be told that you do not love him.”

“I never pretended to him that I did,” Babbie said, looking up.  “Oh,” she added, with emphasis, “he knows that.  He thinks me incapable of caring for any one.”

“And that is why he must be told of me,” Gavin replied.  “You are no longer the woman you were, Babbie, and you know it, and I know it, but he does not know it.  He shall know it before he decides whether he is to marry you.”

Babbie looked at Gavin, and wondered he did not see that this decision lay with him.

“Nevertheless,” she said, “the wedding will take place to-morrow:  if it did not, Lord Rintoul would be the scorn of his friends.”

“If it does,” the minister answered, “he will be the scorn of himself.  Babbie, there is a chance.”

“There is no chance,” she told him.  “I shall be back at the Spittal without any one’s knowing of my absence, and when I begin to tell him of you, he will tremble, lest it means my refusal to marry him; when he knows it does not, he will wonder only why I told him anything.”

“He will ask you to take time—­”

“No, he will ask me to put on my wedding-dress.  You must not think anything else possible.”

“So be it, then,” Gavin said firmly.

“Yes, it will be better so,” Babbie answered, and then, seeing him misunderstand her meaning, exclaimed reproachfully, “I was not thinking of myself.  In the time to come, whatever be my lot, I shall have the one consolation, that this is best for you.  Think of your mother.”

“She will love you,” Gavin said, “when I tell her of you.”

“Yes,” said Babbie, wringing her hands; “she will almost love me, but for what?  For not marrying you.  That is the only reason any one in Thrums will have for wishing me well.”

“No others,” Gavin answered, “will ever know why I remained unmarried.”

“Will you never marry?” Babbie asked, exultingly.  “Ah!” she cried, ashamed, “but you must.”

“Never.”

Well, many a man and many a woman has made that vow in similar circumstances, and not all have kept it.  But shall we who are old smile cynically at the brief and burning passion of the young?  “The day,” you say, “will come when—­” Good sir, hold your peace.  Their agony was great and now is dead, and, maybe, they have forgotten where it lies buried; but dare you answer lightly when I ask you which of these things is saddest?

Babbie believed his “Never,” and, doubtless, thought no worse of him for it; but she saw no way of comforting him save by disparagement of herself.

“You must think of your congregation,” she said.  “A minister with a gypsy wife—­”

“Would have knocked them about with a flail,” Gavin interposed, showing his teeth at the thought of the precentor, “until they did her reverence.”