So, although I had miserable doubts that the steed was already stolen, I was determined to lock the stable door. 'Lovely night,' said he. 'I like your Scotch hills at night; and, for the matter of that, I like them in the daytime too.' Fabian always sank the fact that he was a Scotchman, though I burned just now with the conviction that he was tainted with the national hypocrisy. 'I suppose you will be glad to get back to the hum and roar again by this time, though,' I said as carelessly as I could. Fabian had none of Edgar's serene obtuseness. He looked at me to find out what I meant. 'Well, you know, we were thinking of imposing ourselves upon you for another week, if you have no objection.' This show of civility was the first shadow on our unceremonious intercourse. In spite of myself I was this evening grave and stiff, and not to be approached with the customary affectionate familiarity. There was silence while one might have counted twenty. Then I said-- 'That was _your_ proposal, was it not?' I spoke so gravely, so humbly, that my question, rude as it was in itself, could not offend. 'Why--yes,' said he in a tone as low and as serious as my own. 'What's the matter, Harry?' 'Will you tell me, honestly, why you want to stay?' His big burning eyes looked intently into my face, and then he put one long thin hand through his hair and laughed. 'Well, after all that you've done to make our stay agreeable, that's a queer question to ask.' I put my hand on his shoulder and forced him to keep still. 'Look here, Faby, I don't want to insult you, you know; but are you staying because of that little girl?' He drew himself up and answered me with a very fine and knightly fire-- 'Do you take me for a scoundrel?' 'No; if I did you would never have touched the child's hand.' 'Then what do you mean?' 'Simply this, that I know Babiole better than you do, and I can see that every word you say to her strikes down deeper than you think. She is an imaginative little--fool if you like; she believes that the romance of her life is come, and she is beginning to live upon it and upon nothing else.' Fabian considered, looking down upon the grass, in which he was digging a deep symmetrical hole with his right heel. At last he looked up. 'I think you're wrong; I do indeed,' he said earnestly. 'You know as well as I do that my trotting about with her has always been as open as the day; that it was taken for granted there was no question of serious love-making with a mere child like that. I'm sure her mother never thought of such a thing for a moment.' Now I knew that Mrs. Ellmer, on principle, scoffed so keenly at love in her daughter's presence, by way of wholesome repression of the emotions, that she would be sure to think that she had scoffed away all danger of its inopportune appearance.