"But ye must hear," he said, with set lips and slow, emphatic utterance. "Ye are bound to hear—and to understand the character of the man ye are publicly associating yourself with. A scoundrel of that kind has no right to be going about with a virtuous and respectable young woman——" "Mr. Purdie," she said, hurriedly, "I don’t want to know—I don’t believe—I wouldn’t believe——" "Miss Stanley," he said, with measured deliberation, "ye have some knowledge of that poor half-witted creature they call Anna Chlannach. But did it never occur to ye to ask how she came to lose her reason? Ay, but if ye had asked, they would not have told ye; there’s not one o’ them about here but would lie through thick and thin to screen that scapegrace; and what then would be the use o’ your asking? But I can tell ye; and I say it’s my bounden duty to speak, if there’s none else here to warn ye. And there is my witness—there is the living witness to that scoundrel’s licentiousness and wicked cruelty: go to her—ask herself—ask her what makes her wander about the shore watching for him, looking out to Heimra as if the ill he has done her could now be repaired. The poor lass, betrayed, deserted: no wonder she lost her reason—ay, and it’s a good thing the currents along this coast are strong, or I’m thinking there might have been a trial for infanticide as well——" Mary heard no more: she did not know that he was still talking to her; she did not know that he accompanied her almost to the house, where he left her. For—after the first fierce and indignant denial that involuntarily rushed to her mind—what she saw before her burning eyes was a series of visions, each of them of the most terrible distinctness, and all of them related in some ghastly way to this story she had just been told. What were these things, then, that seemed to sear her very eyeballs? She saw the little harbour of Camus Bheag; she saw the figure of a young girl rocking herself in an utter abandonment of misery and despair; she saw piteous hands held out; she heard that heart-broken wail piercing the silence as the boat made slowly away for Eilean Heimra. And then again she was on the heights above the Garra, and looking down upon the bridge. Those two there?—she had taken them for lovers—she had called Käthchen’s attention—it was a pretty scene. Then the sudden, swift disappearance of the girl into the woods; and the young man’s easy, confident professions: all those things grew manifest before her with an appalling clearness; a blinding light burned upon them. Nay, her very first interview with Anna Chlannach came back to startle her: she remembered the poor demented girl wandering among the rocks, all her intelligible talk being about Heimra: she remembered her being easily persuaded to walk towards the house; she remembered, too, how Anna Chlannach fled in terror the moment she came in sight of the stranger who knew her history. What hideous tale was it that seemed to