ng it; and when things came to that pass that
none could endure it and I struck him; how was the affair settled. By
your sending for him!--for him!" he fairly screamed, "while I, your
betrothed husband almost, was left in ignorance that ye knew of the
matter at all.

"And at the time of the meeting in the Holm, what does the damned
scoundrel do but come forth with his friends and apologize for his
conduct with seeming generosity, naming the whole business the result
of a crusty temper of his own, apologizing handsomely, and in a
devilish open way, ending by saying:

"'One who is dear to me has shown me my faults, and I am doing her
bidding, as well as fulfilling my own sense of justice, in asking your
pardon!' And at the mention of you he took off his hat and spoke as one
who performs an obligation to another who has a right to demand it.

"You can perhaps see the light in which I was placed! Even my own
friends went over to the duke's side, and I was forced to shake his
damned hand and join him at the Red Cock for breakfast or show a surly
front by my refusal. I was made a laughing stock for the whole party.
Put in the wrong in every way; and even Billy Deuceace, a man of
penetration, was so deceived by this, that afterward he bade me, with a
laugh, 'fight about women who were in love with me and not with other
men.'"

During this rehearsal of his wrongs Nancy sat quietly embroidering, not
looking at the speaker nor seeming to note the voice at all.

"I said nothing of the affair to you," he continued; "I thought to let
the thing go by, and went off to Glasgow, hoping to forget it before we
met again. And what do I come back to? To learn that half the town has
it that you've visited an inn in another county and spent your days,
aye, and I suppose they say your nights, too, with Rab Burns, whom
decent folk will not let their daughters know. At tales like this the
affair takes on another complexion. I do not want a wife for myself,
nor a mother for my children, whose name has been bandied about like
that!"

He was so beside himself with rage and jealousy and the further present
annoyance of Nancy's inattention, that he raised his voice at the end
to a tone of harshness, such as none had ever used to Nancy Stair, and
which she was the last woman to stand patient under. She did the thing
by instinct which would enrage him most, putting a thread to her
needle, squinting up one eye as she did so, in a composed and usu