It was not to that he replied.

“You have suffered long, Mr. Ogilvy,” he said.  “Father,” he added, wringing my hand.  I called him son; but it was only an exchange of musty words that we had found too late.  A father is a poor estate to come into at two and twenty.

“I should have been told of this,” he said.

“Your mother did right, sir,” I answered slowly, but he shook his head.

“I think you have misjudged her,” he said.  “Doubtless while my fa--, while Adam Dishart lived, she could only think of you with pain; but after his death—­”

“After his death,” I said quietly, “I was still so horrible to her that she left Harvie without letting a soul know whither she was bound.  She dreaded my following her.”

“Stranger to me,” he said, after a pause, “than even your story is her being able to keep it from me.  I believed no thought ever crossed her mind that she did not let me share.”

“And none, I am sure, ever did,” I answered, “save that, and such thoughts as a woman has with God only.  It was my lot to bring disgrace on her.  She thought it nothing less, and she has hidden it all these years for your sake, until now it is not burdensome.  I suppose she feels that God has taken the weight off her.  Now you are to put a heavier burden in its place.”

He faced me boldly, and I admire him for it now.

“I cannot admit,” he said, “that I did wrong in forgetting my mother for that fateful quarter of an hour.  Babbie and I loved each other, and I was given the opportunity of making her mine or losing her forever.  Have you forgotten that all this tragedy you have told me of only grew out of your own indecision?  I took the chance that you let slip by.”

“I had not forgotten,” I replied.  “What else made me tell you last night that Babbie was in Nanny’s house?”

“But now you are afraid—­now when the deed is done, when for me there can be no turning back.  Whatever be the issue, I should be a cur to return to Thrums without my wife.  Every minute I feel my strength returning, and before you reach Thrums I will have set out to the Spittal.”

There was nothing to say after that.  He came with me in the rain as far as the dike, warning me against telling his people what was not true.

“My first part,” I answered, “will be to send word to your mother that you are in safety.  After that I must see Whamond.  Much depends on him.”

“You will not go to my mother?”

“Not so long as she has a roof over her head,” I said, “but that may not be for long.”

So, I think, we parted—­each soon to forget the other in a woman.

But I had not gone far when I heard something that stopped me as sharply as if it had been McKenzie’s hand once more on my shoulder.  For a second the noise appalled me, and then, before the echo began, I knew it must be the Spittal cannon.  My only thought was one of thankfulness.  Now Gavin must see the wisdom of my reasoning.  I would wait for him until he was able to come with me to Thrums.  I turned back, and in my haste I ran through water I had gone round before.