Sometimes I felt tempted to let her know that I was twenty years younger than she, growing up in the belief of her childhood on that matter, innocently thought. But it could make no difference, in the only way in which I cared for it to make a difference, and it might render her constrained with me. After all, it was my comparative youth which enabled me to enter into her feelings, as no dry-as-dust professor of fifty could have done, and it was upon that sympathy that the bond between us was founded. In the happiness this companionship brought to me, I thought I had lulled keener feelings to sleep, when, as spring came back, and I was beginning again to dread the return of the long days, an event happened which made havoc of the most cherished sentiments of all three of us. The first intimation of this revolution was given by Ferguson, who informed me at luncheon, with a solemnly indignant face, that a 'varra disreputable-looking person' had been pestering him with inquiries for Mr. Maude, and, after having the door shut in his face had taken himself off, so Ferguson feared, in the direction of the cottage, to bother the ladies. My butler's dislike of Mrs. Ellmer had broken down under her constant assistance to Janet. 'I saw that Jim was aboot the stable, sir, so I have nae doot he helped the gentleman awa' safe eno',' added Ferguson grimly. I thought no more of the incident, which the butler had reported simply because up among the hills the sight of an unknown face is an event. But at four o'clock Babiole did not appear; I sat waiting, looking through the pages of Green's _Short History of the English People_, on which we were then engaged, for twenty minutes; and then, almost alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, I was getting up to go and make inquiries at the cottage when I heard her well-known footstep through the open hall-door. Even before she came in I knew that something had happened, for instead of running in all eager, laughing apology, as was her way on the rare occasions when she was a few minutes late, I heard her cross the hall very slowly and hesitate at the door. 'Come in, come in, Babiole; what's the matter?' I cried out impatiently. She came in then quickly, and held out her hand to me as she wished me good-afternoon. But there was no smile on her face, and the light seemed to have gone out of her eyes. 'What is it, child? Something has happened,' said I, as I drew her down into her usual chair. She shook her head, and tried to laugh, but suddenly broke down, and, bursting into tears, leaned her face against her hands and sobbed bitterly. I was horribly distressed. I tried some vague words of consolation for the unknown evil, and laid my hand lightly on one heaving shoulder, only to withdraw it as if seared by the touch. Then I sat down quietly and waited, while Ta-ta, more daring, set up a kindly howl of sympathetic lamentation, which happily caused a diversion.