y enough to meet with a premature and sudden end--into a sour,
lonely, crabbed old age, when I would wish to goodness I had
married anybody, and might even finish by applying to a Matrimonial
Agency.

As I sat nursing these melancholy thoughts I heard a footstep. I
did not look up--for I knew the footstep. I should have known it
if it had trodden over my grave.

"I take it you are not wanting company, you have come so far out of
the way of it," said Dugald Shaw.

Still I did not look up.

"Nobody seemed to want _me_," I remarked sulkily, after a pause.
He made no reply, but seated himself upon the rocks. For a little
there was silence.

"Virginia," he said abruptly, "I'm thinking you have hurt the lad."

"Oh," I burst out, "that is all you think of--the lad, the lad!
How about me? Don't you suppose it hurt me too?"

"No," he made deliberate answer. "I was not sure of that. I
thought maybe you liked having men at your feet."

"Liked it? Liked to wound Cuthbert--_Cuthbert_? Oh, if only it
had not happened, if we could have gone on being friends! It was
all my fault for going with him into the cave. It was after you
had buried the skeleton, and I wanted to see poor Peter's
resting-place. And we spoke of Helen, and it was all frightfully
melancholy and tender, and all at once he--he said it. And I meant
he never should!" In the soreness of my heart I began to weep.

"There, lassie, there, don't cry!" he said gently. "The boy didn't
speak of it, of course. But I knew how it must be. It has hit him
hard, I am afraid."

"I suppose," I wept, "you would have had me marry him whether I
wanted to or not, just to keep from hurting him."

"No," he answered quickly. "I did not say that--I did not say that
I would have had you marry him. No, lass, I did not say that."

"Then why are you scolding me?" I asked in a choked whisper.

"Scolding you? I was not. It was only that--that I love the
lad--and I wish you both so well--I thought perhaps there was some
mistake, and--it would not matter about me, if I could see you both
happy."

"There is a mistake," I said clearly. "It is a great mistake,
Dugald Shaw, that you should come to me and court me--for some one
else."

There was silence for a while, the kind of silence when you hear
your heartbeats.

When he spoke his voice was unsteady.

"But the boy has everything to offer you--his ancient name, his
splendid unstained youth, a heart that is all