in when I have seen the last
of her."

That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go. I dwelled upon the
idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence, to
consider how very poorly they were like to fare when Davie Balfour was
no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my own very great
surprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up. I was still
angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that she
should suffer nothing.

This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out
and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every
mark upon them of a recent disagreement. Catriona was like a wooden
doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots,
and his nose upon one side. As soon as I came in, the girl looked at him
with a steady, clear, dark look that might very well have been followed
by a blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, and
I was surprised to see James More accept it. It was plain he had had a
master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil in
the girl than I had guessed, and more good-humor about the man than I
had given him the credit of.

He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a
lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his
voice, Catriona cut in.

"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she. "He means we
have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,
and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are
wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his
gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some
more alms. For that is what we are, at all events, beggar-folk and
sorners."

"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your father by
myself."

She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.

"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More. "She has no
delicacy."

"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit of
you. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond, I
have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained for. I
know you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I know you
have had more since you were here in Leyden, though you concealed it
even from your daughter."

"I bid you beware. I wi