By and bye comes laughter and voices and ringing footsteps up the stair, but only Charteris enters the drawing-room; for Harry and his other friends are climbing further up to the turret, where he has fitted up a little “den,” as Gilbert Allenders calls it, for himself. And their good friend, Mr. Charteris, looks very grave; they think Harry has lowered himself in Cuthbert’s eyes--they think this seriousness is the painful regret with which a strong man sees a weak one sink under temptation; and their hearts flutter within them with restless anxiety, and they listen to Harry’s laugh in the distance till its echo makes them sick. While, all the time, Cuthbert is too much interested not to notice how uneasily the young wife moves upon her chair, and the abstraction from which Martha starts with a dismal resolution to be gay again. Poor Harry! But Cuthbert stands behind the chair of Rose, and feels that he is consoling _her_--feels that he is occupying with his presence something of the space which, without him, might have been wholly given to anxiety and fear. The children are already out under the windows, playing on the lawn; and, at Cuthbert’s suggestion, Rose and Martha accompany him to the mall on the river-side. He tells them how he admired this when he came first with Harry to see Allenders, and that he often fancies how they must enjoy this verdant cloister when he is shut up in his office at Edinburgh. The sun slants in through the great oak which rounds the end of the mall, and just touches here and there a heavy alder leaf, and lights up one little branch upon a stately elm, with tender golden rays, cool and dewy; and there is wind enough to disturb the long willow branches and ruffle the fleecy lining of their leaves. A narrow strip of path, sandy and yellow, breaks the soft green turf which slopes down to the water on one side, and on the other, rich with flower-beds, stretches up in a slight incline to the walls of Allenders; and Cuthbert, with Martha on his arm, walks slowly, silently, looking after the white figure which has strayed a step or two before. Slightly turning towards them, with a shy, half-conscious look backwards, Rose says something to Martha about the wild flowers in the grass; and Rose guesses, with a tremor, that Cuthbert has had visions of herself under the shadow of these trees, and feels that his eye just now is dwelling upon her, and that he is saying words to her in his heart. But the charmed silence lasts, and even Martha, looking on, has not the heart to break its spell.