“I cannot see why pride should influence her.”

“Then you know little about women.  It was pride, pure and simple, Finlay, that made her tell you that—­and she’ll be a sorry woman if you act on it.”

“No,” said Finlay, suddenly looking up, “I may know little about women, but I know more about Advena Murchison than that.  She advised me in the sense she thought right and honourable, and her advice was sincere.  And, Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison’s view of the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it.  It must stand by itself.”

“You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness and that of another person.  I can’t agree, Finlay.  I spoke first of Advena Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart.  I feel, too, that someone should put her case.  Her own father would never open his lips.  If you’re to be hauled over the coals about this I’m the only man to do it.  And I’m going to.”

A look of sharp determination came into the minister’s eyes; he had the momentary air of a small Scotch terrier with a bidding.  Finlay looked at him in startled recognition of another possible phase of his dilemma; he thought he knew it in every wretched aspect.  It was a bold reference of Dr Drummond’s; it threw down the last possibility of withdrawal for Finlay; they must have it out now, man to man, with a little, perhaps, even in that unlikely place, of penitent to confessor.  It was an exigency, it helped Finlay to pull himself together, and there was something in his voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief.

“I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of telling you, sir,” he said, “that—­the state of feeling—­between Miss Murchison and myself should have been so plain to you.  It is incomprehensible to me that it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have understood it truly myself.  I hope you will believe that it was the strangest, most unexpected, most sudden revelation.”

He paused and looked timidly at the Doctor; he, the great fellow, in straining bondage to his heart, leaning forward with embarrassed tension in every muscle, Dr Drummond alert, poised, critical, balancing his little figure on the hearthrug.

“I preach faith in miracles,” he said.  “I dare say between you and her it would be just that.”

“I have been deeply culpable.  Common sense, common knowledge of men and women should have warned me that there might be danger.  But I looked upon the matter as our own—­as between us only.  I confess that I have not till now thought of that part of it, but surely—­You cannot mean to tell me that what I have always supposed my sincere and devoted friendship for Miss Murchison has been in any way prejudicial—­”