With this parting shot she tripped past him, and Gavin would not let his eyes follow her.  It was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit.  It was the word “little.”  Though, even Margaret was not aware of it, Gavin’s shortness had grieved him all his life.  There had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself.  In his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him.  In the company of tall men he was always self-conscious.  In the pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation when he asked them who, by taking thought, could add a cubit to his stature.  When standing on a hearthrug his heels were frequently on the fender.  In his bedroom he has stood on a footstool and surveyed himself in the mirror.  Once he fastened high heels to his boots, being ashamed to ask Hendry Munn to do it for him; but this dishonesty shamed him, and he tore them off.  So the Egyptian had put a needle into his pride, and he walked to the manse gloomily.

Margaret was at her window, looking for him, and he saw her though she did not see him.  He was stepping into the middle of the road to wave his hand to her, when some sudden weakness made him look towards the fields instead.  The Egyptian saw him and nodded thanks for his interest in her, but he scowled and pretended to be studying the sky.  Next moment he saw her running back to him.

“There are soldiers at the top of the field,” she cried.  “I cannot escape that way.”

“There is no other way,” Gavin answered.

“Will you not help me again?” she entreated.

She should not have said “again.”  Gavin shook his head, but pulled her closer to the manse dyke, for his mother was still in sight.

“Why do you do that?” the girl asked, quickly, looking round to see if she were pursued.  “Oh, I see,” she said, as her eyes fell on the figure at the window.

“It is my mother,” Gavin said, though he need not have explained, unless he wanted the gypsy to know that he was a bachelor.

“Only your mother?”

“Only!  Let me tell you she may suffer more than you for your behaviour to-night!”

“How can she?”

“If you are caught, will it not be discovered that I helped you to escape?”

“But you said you did not.”

“Yes, I helped you,” Gavin admitted.  “My God! what would my congregation say if they knew I had let you pass yourself off as—­ as my wife?”

He struck his brow, and the Egyptian had the propriety to blush.

“It is not the punishment from men I am afraid of,” Gavin said, bitterly, “but from my conscience.  No, that is not true.  I do fear exposure, but for my mother’s sake.  Look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last I seemed able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness.  You have her life in your hands.”