“Do not tell _me_ that,” she said, coming over courageously and laying her hand upon his shoulder. “I know you understand every word of the story, if it is the story I mean.” He did not deny it this time. “But I do not know whether it is the same story or not,” he said, eagerly wishing she would change the subject. “What I mean,” said she, “is a story about a woman who was a friend of mine--and--and she quarrelled with my brothers. Is that the one?” “That was the one,” said he. Miss Mary wrung her hands. “Oh!” she cried piteously, “that they should be thinking about that yet! wiser-like would it be for them to be sitting at the Book. Poor Nan! Poor Nan! my dear companion! Must they be blaming her even in the grave? You understand it very well. I know by your face you understand it. She should not have all the blame. They did not understand; they were older, more sedate than she was; their merriment was past; there was no scrap left of their bairnhood that even in the manliest man finds a woman’s heart quicker than any other quality. I think she tried to--to--to--like them because they were my brothers, but the task beat her for all her endeavour. It is an old, dait story. I am wondering at them bringing it up to you. What do you think they would bring it up to you for?” And she scrutinised him shrewdly again. “I think the girl the Cornal saw me with put him in mind of her mother,” said Gilian, pushing the idea no further. She still looked closely at him. “The girl cannot help that,” said she. “She is very like her mother in some ways--perhaps in many. Maybe that was the Cornal’s reason for telling you the story.” There was not, for once, the response of understanding in Gilian’s face. She could say no more. Was he not a boy yet, perhaps with the impulse she and the Cornal feared, all undeveloped? And at any rate she dare not give him the watchword that all their remembrances led up to--the word Beware. But Gilian guessed the word, and his assumption of ignorance was to prevent Miss Mary from guessing so much. Only he misunderstood. He looked upon the desire to keep him from the company of the people of Maam as due to the old rancours and jealousies, while indeed it was all in his interest. But in any case he respected the feelings of the Paymaster’s family, and thereafter for long he avoided as honestly as a boy might all intercourse with the girl, whom circumstance the mischievous, the henchman of the enemy, put in his way more frequently almost than any of her sex. He must be meeting her in the street, the lane, the market-place, in the highway, or in walks along the glen. He kept aloof as well as he might (yet ever thinking her for song and charm the most interesting girl he knew), and the days passed; the springs would be but a breath of rich brown mould and birch, the summers but a flash of golden days growing briefer every year, the winters a lessening interlude of storm and darkness.