long thin nose and the cat's whiskers of our lodger at
West Inch. As to my father, he had a fine gold watch with a double
case; and a proud man was he as he sat with it in the palm of his hand,
his ear stooping to hearken to the tick. I do not know which was best
pleased, and they would talk of nothing but what de Lapp had given them.

"He's given you something more," said I at last.

"What then, Jock?" asked father.

"A husband for Cousin Edie," said I.

They thought I was daffing when I said that; but when they came to
understand that it was the real truth, they were as proud and as pleased
as if I had told them that she had married the laird. Indeed, poor Jim,
with his hard drinking and his fighting, had not a very bright name on
the country-side, and my mother had often said that no good could come
of such a match. Now, de Lapp was, for all we knew, steady and quiet
and well-to-do. And as to the secrecy of it, secret marriages were very
common in Scotland at that time, when only a few words were needed to
make man and wife, so nobody thought much of that. The old folk were as
pleased, then, as if their rent had been lowered; but I was still sore
at heart, for it seemed to me that my friend had been cruelly dealt
with, and I knew well that he was not a man who would easily put up with
it.

CHAPTER X.

THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW.

I woke with a heavy heart the next morning, for I knew that Jim would be
home before long, and that it would be a day of trouble. But how much
trouble that day was to bring, or how far it would alter the lives of
us, was more than I had ever thought in my darkest moments. But let me
tell you it all, just in the order that it happened.

I had to get up early that morning; for it was just the first flush of
the lambing, and my father and I were out on the moors as soon as it was
fairly light. As I came out into the passage a wind struck upon my
face, and there was the house door wide open, and the grey light drawing
another door upon the inner wall. And when I looked again there was
Edie's room open also, and de Lapp's too; and I saw in a flash what that
giving of presents meant upon the evening before. It was a
leave-taking, and they were gone.

My heart was bitter against Cousin Edie as I stood looking into her
room. To think that for the sake of a newcomer she could leave us all
without one kindly word, or as much as a hand-shake. And he, too!
I had been afraid