Hugh Ritson's composure was gone. Mr. Bonnithorne, not easily cowed, dropped his eyes before him. "Terrible, terrible!" he muttered again, and added with more assurance: "But you know I have always urged you to assert your right to the inheritance." Hugh was striding about the room, his infirm foot trailing heavily after him. "Bonnithorne," he said, pausing, "when a woman has outraged the poor weak heart of one of the waifs whom fate flings into the gutter, he sometimes throws a cup of vitriol into her face, saying, 'If she is not for me, she is not for another;' or 'Where she has sinned, there let her suffer.' That is revenge; it is the feeble device of a man who thinks in his simple soul that when beauty is gone loathing is at hand." Another light trill of laughter. "But the cup of retribution is not to be measured by the cup of vitriol." Mr. Bonnithorne fumbled his papers nervously, and repeated beneath his breath, "Terrible, terrible!" "She has wronged me, Bonnithorne, and he has wronged me. They shall marry and they shall separate; and henceforward they shall walk together and yet apart, a gulf dividing them from each other, yet a wider gulf dividing both from the world; and so on until the end, and he and I and she and I are quits." "Terrible, terrible!" Mr. Bonnithorne mumbled again. "All nature rises against it." "Is it so? Then be it so," said Hugh, the flame subsiding from his cheek, and a cold smile creeping afresh about his lips. "Your sense of justice would have been answered, perhaps, if I had turned this bastard adrift penniless and a beggar, stopped the marriage, and taken by strategy the woman I could not win by love." The smile faded away. "That would have been better than the cup of vitriol, but not much better. You are a man of the world." "It is a terrible revenge," the lawyer muttered again--this time with a different intonation. "I repeat, they shall marry. No more than that," said Hugh. "I would outrage nature as little as I would shock the world." The sun had crept round to where the organ stood in one corner of the room. Hugh's passion had gradually subsided. He sidled on to the stool and began to play softly. A knock came to the door, and old Laird Fisher entered. "The gentleman frae Crewe is down at the pit about t' engine in the smelting-mill," said the old man. "Say I shall be with him in half an hour," said Hugh, and Laird Fisher left the room. Then Hugh put the papers in his pocket. "We have wasted too much time over the certificates--they can wait--where's the deed of mortgage?--I must have the money to pay for the new engine." "It is here," said the lawyer, and he spread a parchment on the table. Hugh glanced hastily over it, and touched a hand-bell. When the maid appeared he told her to go to Mr. Paul, who was thatching in the stack-yard, and say he wished to see him at once. Then he returned to the organ and played a tender air. His touch was both light and strenuous.