“And Mr. Harcourt, too—what will he say?” “If he be a wise man, ‘that he is well rid of her,’” answered Arthur. “She must be a bad girl—a bad, false girl.” “But, oh! so good to Lally,” said Heather, deprecatingly; “and I do not think it was of her own free will she went now—I do not—I believe she was driven to it. Read her letter, Arthur—read how she says she tried to like Mr. Harcourt, and how her mother forced her on. If I only knew she were married, I could rest satisfied.” And so husband and wife talked on, while Alick, standing by, remained resolutely silent. He would tell nothing about it; he would say nothing concerning the stranger they had met at North Kemms; he would not utterly destroy Heather’s faith, and show her that Bessie had been a deceiver from the beginning. His heart was yearning after the girl, but he would not speak a word that could give a clue as to whom she had eloped with. She had prayed him not to tell Heather, and he would be faithful to his trust. From him Heather never should know how false this girl had been—this girl with the lovely face, and the sweet, winning manners, which had gained her so many friends. “The matter should be kept quiet;” each attributing different meanings to that expression, agreed as to the expediency of this course. Arthur said he would go to town with Alick, and take Bessie’s letter on to her father. “Then, Mr. Ormson can do whatever he thinks best,” said the Squire; and Heather at once went to see that breakfast was got ready for the brothers before their departure. “I wonder who the devil she can have picked up,” remarked Squire Dudley, when his wife left the room; “you never saw anybody hanging about the place, did you, Alick?” Very truthfully, Alick answered that he had not; but still in his own soul he felt satisfied Bessie had gone off with the stranger, who sat in the same pew with them, and restored Miss Ormson’s prayer-book on that Sunday when he and his cousin walked across the fields to North Kemms church, talking as they went. CHAPTER VIII. MR. STEWART’S PROPOSAL.