She shook her head, and told him of her meeting with Micah Dow.  It silenced him; not, however, on account of its pathos, as she thought, but because it interpreted the riddle of Rob’s behavior.

“Nevertheless,” he said ultimately, “my duty is not to do what is right in my people’s eyes, but what seems right in my own.”

Babbie had not heard him.

“I saw a face at the window just now,” she whispered, drawing closer to him.

“There was no face there; the very thought of Rob Dow raises him before you,” Gavin answered reassuringly, though Rob was nearer at that moment than either of them thought.

“I must go away at once,” she said, still with her eyes in the window.  “No, no, you shall not come or stay with me; it is you who are in danger.”

“Do not fear for me.”

“I must, if you will not.  Before you came in, did I not hear you speak of a meeting you had to attend to-night?”

“My pray—­” His teeth met on the word; so abruptly did it conjure up the forgotten prayer-meeting that before the shock could reach his mind he stood motionless, listening for the bell.  For one instant all that had taken place since he last heard it might have happened between two of its tinkles; Babbie passed from before him like a figure in a panorama, and he saw, instead, a congregation in their pews.

“What do you see?” Babbie cried in alarm, for he seemed to be gazing at the window.

“Only you,” he replied, himself again; “I am coming with you.”

“You must let me go alone,” she entreated; “if not for your own safety”—­but it was only him she considered—­“then for the sake of Lord Rintoul.  Were you and I to be seen together now, his name and mine might suffer.”

It was an argument the minister could not answer save by putting his hands over his face; his distress made Babbie strong; she moved to the door, trying to smile.

“Go, Babbie!” Gavin said, controlling his voice, though it had been a smile more pitiful than her tears.  “God has you in His keeping; it is not His will to give me this to bear for you.”

They were now in the garden.

“Do not think of me as unhappy,” she said; “it will be happiness to me to try to be all you would have me be.”

He ought to have corrected her.  “All that God would have me be,” is what she should have said.  But he only replied, “You will be a good woman, and none such can be altogether unhappy; God sees to that.”

He might have kissed her, and perhaps she thought so.

“I am—­I am going now, dear,” she said, and came back a step because he did not answer; then she went on, and was out of his sight at three yards’ distance.  Neither of them heard the approaching dogcart.

“You see, I am bearing it quite cheerfully,” she said.  “I shall have everything a woman loves; do not grieve for me so much.”

Gavin dared not speak nor move.  Never had he found life so hard; but he was fighting with the ignoble in himself, and winning.  She opened the gate, and it might have been a signal to the dogcart to stop.  They both heard a dog barking, and then the voice of Lord Rintoul: