it?"

"He's a smart young fellow----"

"No name, no name, or you are no friend of mine! Money, you say?"

"I could have picked no better for you myself."

"Did you say money?"

"I thought once there might be something."

"Money, money," she repeated to herself.

"A tocher should not be all on one side," said he, "and I know the
gentleman would be glad to have you----"

"Perhaps the whole countryside knows more about it than I do; it could
scarcely know less. I wondered why they were looking at me in the church
on Sunday. Oh! I feel black burning shame--shame--shame!"

She put her hands to her face to hide her tears; she trembled in every
part.

"They know; the cries are in at least," said Duncan.

"The cries! the cries!" she repeated. "Is my fate so near at hand as
that?"

"You'll be a married woman before the General takes the road," said he.

She took her hands from her face; her eyes froze and snapped, cold as
ice, the very redness of her weeping cooling pale in her passion. She
had no words to utter; she left him hurriedly, and ran fast into the
house.

CHAPTER XXVIII--GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

Her father was at the door when she went in. Now for the first time she
knew the reason for his change of manner lately, for that bustle about
trivial affairs when she was near, that averted eye when she was
fond and humorous. She went past him, unable to speak more than an
indifferent word, and great was his relief at that, for he had been
standing there bracing his courage to consult her on what she must be
told of sooner or later. He looked after her as she sped upstairs. "I
wonder how she'll take it?" he said to himself, greatly perplexed. "A
father has some unco' tasks to perform, and here's a father not very
well fitted by nature for the management of a daughter." He took off his
hat and dried a clammy brow that showed how much the duty postponed had
been disturbing him. "It's for the best, but it's a vulgar business even
then. If it was her uncle, now, he would wake her out of her sleep to
tell her the news. Poor girl, poor girl! I wish she had her mother."

He went into the barn, where corn was piling up, the straw filling the
gloomy gable-ends with rustling gold. Loud he stormed among some workers
there; loud he stormed, for him a thing unusual; and they bent silent
to their work and looked at one another knowingly, sensible that he
was ashamed of himself. Sitting dry-eyed on the edge of her be