t your company,
I'll let you know."

"O!" cries Frank, "you don't want my company, don't you?"

"Apparently not just now," replied Archie. "I even indicated to you when
I did, if you'll remember--and that was at dinner. If we two fellows are
to live together pleasantly--and I see no reason why we should not--it
can only be by respecting each other's privacy. If we begin
intruding----"

"O, come! I'll take this at no man's hands. Is this the way you treat a
guest and an old friend?" cried Innes.

"Just go home and think over what I said by yourself," continued Archie,
"whether it's reasonable, or whether it's really offensive or not; and
let's meet at dinner as though nothing had happened. I'll put it this
way, if you like--that I know my own character, that I'm looking forward
(with great pleasure, I assure you) to a long visit from you, and that
I'm taking precautions at the first. I see the thing that we--that I, if
you like--might fall out upon, and I step in and _obsto principiis_. I
wager you five pounds you'll end by seeing that I mean friendliness, and
I assure you, Francie, I do," he added, relenting.

Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod,
made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the burn-side. Archie
watched him go without moving. He was sorry, but quite unashamed. He
hated to be inhospitable, but in one thing he was his father's son. He
had a strong sense that his house was his own and no man else's; and to,
lie at a guest's mercy was what he refused. He hated to seem harsh. But
that was Frank's look-out. If Frank had been commonly discreet, he would
have been decently courteous. And there was another consideration. The
secret he was protecting was not his own merely; it was hers: it
belonged to that inexpressible she who was fast taking possession of his
soul, and whom he would soon have defended at the cost of burning
cities. By the time he had watched Frank as far as the Swingleburnfoot,
appearing and disappearing in the tarnished heather, still stalking at a
fierce gait, but already dwindled in the distance into less than the
smallness of Lilliput, he could afford to smile at the occurrence.
Either Frank would go, and that would be a relief--or he would continue
to stay, and his host must continue to endure him. And Archie was now
free--by devious paths, behind hillocks and in the hollow of burns--to
make for the trysting-place where Kirstie, cried about by the