arms when she
sank motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the bell.

But Clementina prevented her from ringing. "I will take her away," she
said. "Do not expose her to your servants. Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore
is the father of this child; and if you can marry him after the way you
have seen him use its mother, you are not too good for him, and I will
trouble myself no more about you."

"I know the author of this calumny," cried Florimel, panting and
flushed. "You have been listening to the inventions of an ungrateful
dependant. You slander my guest."

"Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?" said Lady Clementina,
turning sharply upon the earl.

His lordship made her a cool obeisance.

Clementina ran into the library, laid the child in a big chair, and
returned for the mother. She was already coming a little to herself and
feeling about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were
looking out of the window, with their backs toward her. Clementina
raised and led her from the room. But in the doorway she turned and
said, "Good-bye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, but I
can of course be your guest no longer."

"Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave-taking,"
Florimel returned with the air of a woman of forty.

"Florimel, you will curse the day you marry that man," cried Clementina,
and closed the door.

She hurried Lizzy to the library, put the baby in her arms, and clasped
them both in her own.

A gush of tears lightened the oppressed heart of the mother. "Lat me oot
o' the hoose, for God's sake!" she cried; and Clementina, almost as
anxious to leave it as she, helped her down to the hall. When she saw
the open door she rushed out of it as if escaping from the pit.

Now, Malcolm, as he came from the factor's, had seen her go in with her
baby in her arms, and suspected the hand of Clementina. Wondering and
anxious, but not very hopeful as to what might come of it, he waited
close by; and when now he saw Lizzy dart from the house in wild
perturbation, he ran from the cover of the surrounding trees into the
open drive to meet her.

"Ma'colm!" groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, "he winna own
till 't! He winna alloo 'at he kens aucht aboot me or the bairn aither!"

Malcolm had taken the child from her, and was clasping him to his bosom.
"He's the warst rascal, Lizzy," he said, "'at ever God made an' the
deevil blaudit."

"Na, na," cried Lizzy; "the li