“Ye perjurer!” cried Robert furiously. “By heaven, I could choke ye with your own lie!” and he turned white with passion. Sir William cowered back, a look of fear in his shifty eyes. “Oh, Robbie, take me hame, take me hame,” gasped Mary, with heart-breaking pathos, and she sank half fainting in the chair Robert had vacated. “Come, James, let us retire,” said Lady Glencairn sweetly, casting a look of grateful triumph at her uncle. “I am sorry you have lost a friend, but I could not shield him,” and she pressed his arm with affected tenderness. Slowly, sorrowfully he allowed himself to be drawn to the door. “My lord!” cried Robert hoarsely, “have ye no word to say to me? Ye have heard the proofs of my innocence; will ye not believe them?” and his whole soul was in his eyes as he eagerly searched the downcast face of his old benefactor. Lord Glencairn gave him one sad, reproachful look. “Oh, Robert,” he said brokenly, “and I trusted you so.” Robert dropped his hand, which he had extended pleadingly, and a flush mounted to the roots of his hair, which quickly faded, leaving him paler than before, while a look of wounded pride and unutterable bitterness flashed into his stern face. “I will attempt no further denial, my lord,” he said slowly, with quiet dignity. “Calumny has at last reared its vicious head to strike like some venomous serpent, seeking to crush me in its enveloping folds. The genius of the Bard is ignored, forgotten—only my obscure birth, my sins, my indiscretions, my faults are remembered now,” and he smiled with mournful bitterness. “Ye have been too puffed up with pride and vanity,” cried Sir William brutally. “Edinburgh has tired of you.” Robert gave a scornful little laugh. “Why,” he asked, looking around at those who had been only too glad to fawn upon him a few moments before, “because I am no longer a curiosity for the vulgar to gaze at?” He spoke with biting sarcasm. He paused a minute, then continued bitterly. “Oh, fool that I have been! At last my eyes are opened to my true position in your world of society. How I hate and despise the hypocrisy of you so-called some-bodies! How you fawn and smirk and bow down to wealth and position, while the man of genius, of avowed worth is disbelieved, dishonored, and insulted! God, the humiliation of it all!” His eyes flashed with righteous anger and the indignant scorn in his voice cut deeply through the thin skin of more than one of his listeners. “I have endured the insults heaped upon my head to-day in bitterness of spirit and in silent scorn,” he continued stormily, “but noo my outraged manhood at last rebels, and I throw down my gage of contemptuous defiance.” “Robert, calm yourself, laddie!” whispered Mrs. Dunlop apprehensively, laying a restraining hand upon his arm, which trembled with excitement. “Your friends will never believe aught against you, Mr. Burns,” exclaimed Mr. Mackenzie, with deep feeling in his voice.