“Ended?” she repeated, an angry flush rising to the roots of her black hair. She looked at him in amazement. He, the poverty-stricken farmer, had repulsed her, the belle of Mauchline? Could she have heard aright? He who had always been at her beck and call, two months ago her willing slave, could it be that he was over his infatuation for her? She had not thought of that possibility. She had expected him to be humble, gratefully flattered by her condescension in seeking him out. If he should refuse the proposal she had come so far to make! she thought in trepidation. “He must not refuse, he shall not refuse,” and her face grew hard and set. But perhaps he was piqued because she had left him so unceremoniously two months ago, because she had not written him. Her tense lips relaxed into a smile. Oh, well, she would be nice to him now; she would make him think she was breaking her heart for him, work on his sympathy, then perhaps it would not be necessary to confess her humiliating plight. No farmer doomed to lifelong poverty would be averse to winning the hand of the daughter of the rich Squire Armour. These thoughts, running through her mind, decided her next move, and with a fluttering sigh she rose from her seat and descended the step. She drew close to him and looking languishingly up into his face, murmured, “Why should it be ended, Robert? I love you just the same as I did in the past,” and she threw her arms about his neck, clinging to him passionately. “You do love me a little, tell me you do.” “Jean, ye must be daft,” he panted, vainly trying to disengage himself from her embrace. But she continued softly, alluringly, “Think of the old days, when I lay in your arms like this, Robbie. Think of those happy hours we spent together on the banks of the Doon. You were not cold to me then. Oh, let us live them all over again. How happy we will be. Kiss me, Rob,” and she lifted her flushed, piquant face, her crimson lips pursed temptingly, close to his. The warmth of her seductive body, the white bare arms in their short sleeves, which embraced his neck, the half-closed passionate eyes gazing invitingly, languorously into his own, fired his naturally ardent blood, making his senses to reel from the contact. Slowly his arms, which had been restraining her amorous embrace, tightened their hold on her, drawing her closer and closer, while the drops of sweat poured down his white, yielding face, as with wild bloodshot eyes he battled with the temptations which beset him so wantonly, so dangerously. With a thrill of elation not unmixed with desire she felt him yielding to her embrace, and knew that she had won him again. With a cooing cry of delight she was about to press her warm lips to his, when suddenly a bird-like voice singing in the distance arrested her impulse. “Oh where and oh where is my Highland laddie gone?”