“No; I distrust you more than ever.  Even if you came, it would be to play with me as you have done already.  How can a vagrant have five pounds in her pocket when she does not have five shillings on her back?”

“You are a cruel, hard man,” the Egyptian said, beginning to lose hope.  “But, see,” she cried, brightening, “look at this ring.  Do you know its value?”

She held up her finger, but the stone would not live in the dull light.

“I see it is gold,” the doctor said cautiously, and she smiled at the ignorance that made him look only at the frame.

“Certainly, it is gold,” said Gavin, equally stupid.

“Mercy on us!” Nanny cried; “I believe it’s what they call a diamond.”

“How did you come by it?” the doctor asked suspiciously.

“I thought we had agreed not to ask each other questions,” the Egyptian answered drily.  “But, see, I will give it to you to hold in hostage.  If I am not at the Kaims to get it back you can keep it.”

The doctor took the ring in his hand and examined it curiously.

“There is a quirk in this,” he said at last, “that I don’t like.  Take back your ring, lassie.  Mr. Dishart, give Nanny your arm, and I’ll carry her box to the machine.”

Now all this time Gavin had been in the dire distress of a man possessed of two minds, of which one said, “This is a true woman,” and the other, “Remember the seventeenth of October.”  They were at war within him, and he knew that he must take a side, yet no sooner had he cast one out than he invited it back.  He did not answer the doctor.

“Unless,” McQueen said, nettled by his hesitation, “you trust this woman’s word.”

Gavin tried honestly to weigh those two minds against each other, but could not prevent impulse jumping into one of the scales.

“You do trust me,” the Egyptian said, with wet eyes; and now that he looked on her again—­

“Yes,” he said firmly, “I trust you,” and the words that had been so difficult to say were the right words.  He had no more doubt of it.

“Just think a moment first,” the doctor warned him.  “I decline to have anything to do with this matter.  You will go to the Kaims for the siller?”

“If it is necessary,” said Gavin.

“It is necessary,” the Egyptian said.

“Then I will go.”

Nanny took his hand timidly, and would have kissed it had he been less than a minister.

“You dare not, man,” the doctor said gruffly, “make an appointment with this gypsy.  Think of what will be said in Thrums.”

I honour Gavin for the way in which he took this warning.  For him, who was watched from the rising of his congregation to their lying down, whose every movement was expected to be a text to Thrums, it was no small thing that he had promised.  This he knew, but he only reddened because the doctor had implied an offensive thing in a woman’s presence,