A faint breath from a new point came through the trees, the dryads sighing for all this pitiful illusion. It struck chill upon his face; he shivered and prepared to set off for home across the hill. A last reluctant glance was thrown at the window, and he had turned towards the milk-house wall when a sound of opening doors arrested him. Now he could not escape unobserved; he withdrew into the shadow of the trees again. The General and another came out and stood midway between the house and the planting. There they spoke in constrained words that did not at first reach him. Against the grey dun of the sky he could separate their figures, but he could not guess the identity of the General’s companion. In a second or two they moved nearer and he was an unwilling listener, though a keenly interested one. “Come, come,” said the General, in a tone of some annoyance, “you had me out to hear your explanation, and now I’m to be kept chittering in the night air till you range your inside for words.” The other murmured something in a voice that did not intelligently reach the planting. “Ay, you did, did you?” said the General in reply, very dryly, and then he paused. “I’ll warrant you found a tartar,” he said in a little. The other answered softly in a word or two. There was another pause, and then the General laughed, not with much geniality. “That was all the news you brought me out here for?” said he. “Come, come, the lady can look after herself so far as that goes. Either that or she’s not her mother’s child. And yet--and yet, I would not be saying. Edinburgh and all their low-country notions make some difference; I see them in her. This is not the girl I sent off south on a mail-gig--just like a parcel. Curse the practice that we must be risking the things of our affection among strangers!” There was no more than the brief and muffled answer, like that of a man ashamed. “I’ve seen that before,” said the General stiffly. “It’s not uncommon at the age, but it’s unusual to take the old gentleman into the garden at night without his bonnet to tell him so little as that.” The answer, still muffled to the listener in the planting, poured forth quickly. “Highland,” said the General, “queer Highlands! And it must be now or never with us, must it? Well, young gentleman, you have nerve at least,” and he quoted a Gaelic proverb. He put his hand on the shoulder of the other and leaned to whisper. Gilian could make the action out against the sky. Then “Good-night” and the father’s footsteps went back to the door and the unknown proceeded down the glen.