is breath was
spent upon the bigger malisons. "Has it never come intil your thick
numbskull that the poor fule lassie is sick wi' love for ye, ye
dour-faced loon?"

And with that he let himself out and slammed the door behind him, and I
heard him go pottering down the corridor, still cursing me by all the
choice phrases he could lay tongue to.

LII

WHICH BRINGS US TO THE JOURNEY'S END

I may confess to you, my dears, that Mr. Gilbert Stair's parting tirade
did not move me greatly, since I would set down everything he had said
to the one account--the miser's.

Yet when I came to second thoughts upon it, this account balanced but
indifferently. Why should he be so eager to make me think small of
Margery's love for Richard Jennifer? And why, misliking me, as I made
sure he did, should he be so hot to make the shadow marriage a thing of
substance? From the miser-father's point of view, Richard, with his
goodly heritage of Jennifer House, was a match to be angled for; yet
here was the man in whose eye house and lands loomed largest flying into
rage because I sought to put his daughter in the way of marrying them.

I was pondering thoughtfully on this, giving the pinching old man credit
for any and every motive save that which he had so cursingly avowed, to
wit, the furthering of his daughter's happiness, when there came a tap
at the door and Mistress Margery entered.

"Dear heart! Do they limit you to a single candle when my back is
turned?" she said, in mock pity; and saying it, went to light the
candles in the mantel sconces.

The sight of her standing a-tiptoe to touch off the candles on the
chimney breast set the old lovespell at work to make my heart beat
faster. What if there were a hint of truth in Gilbert Stair's wrathful
protest? What if, after all, she cared less for Richard and more for me?

Do not, I pray you, my dears, think too hardly of the man who thus lays
bare the secret thoughts of his heart for you. 'Twas but a passing gust
of the tempest of disloyalty, and I was not swept wholly from my
moorings. Nay, when she came to sit on the hassock at my feet, as she
used to do in that other halcyon-time of convalescence, I was myself
again and could look upon her sweet face with eyes that saw beyond her
to the camp or battle-field where my dear lad was spending himself.

For a time we sat in silence, and 'twas she who spoke first.

"My father has been with you," she said. "I hope you did not q