He and she had come from Scotland. I have said that she was beautiful--she was English, too; but he was Scotch born and bred, and not dark and stem, or really wild or poetic, as a Scotchman in a story ought to be. He was simply a strong, well-formed man, of dark, ruddy complexion, and fine, thick, waving brown hair. He might have been a nobleman, or a royal descendant of Hull's own king. He looked it all, without being downright handsome. But he was, in fact, only one of the many men who have come into a thousand a year too soon for the preservation of prudence. Between sixteen, when he succeeded to it, and twenty-one, when he could spend it, he had committed many follies, and found friends who turned out worse than declared enemies--since twenty-one he had fallen in love more than once. He had been praised, blamed, accused, acquitted. But whether or not this man was good or bad, no living soul could tell. He was well off, well looking, well read, and in good company. He re-entered the inn at Hull that April night, stood by the fire smoking, asked for a cup of strong coffee, went to bed. The next morning the two met at breakfast They were going south. No matter where. Whether to the dreamy vales of Devonshire, to verdant Somersetshire, or the gardens of Hampshire--no matter. They were going to what the north Britons call the south. And it did not mean Algeria. Railways were not everywhere then as railways are now. They had to travel nearly all day, then to "coach it" to a great town, in whose history coaches have now long been of the past. Then to get on a second day by the old "fast four-horse," and to arrive about five o'clock at a little quiet country town, where a carriage would take them to the friends and the house whose influence he dreaded. In fact, that night, in the inn sitting-room, he had offered marriage to the girl whom he had in charge for safe guardianship on so long a journey to her far-off home where he was to be a guest. She had felt that he had abused his trust and taken an unfair advantage of her; also, she was in that peculiarly feminine state of mind which is neither expressed by _no_ nor by _yes_. She had upbraided him. He, pleading guilty in his soul, was in a horror at the thought of losing her; losing her in that way too, because he had done wrong. Being miserable, he had shown his misery as a strong man may. He spoke, and self-reproachfully; but, as he pleaded, he betrayed all he felt. The girl saw his clasped hands, his bent form, as he leaned down from the chair on which he sat in the straggling attitude which expressed a disordered mind. He spoke, looking at the carpet, not loud nor long, but with a terrible earnestness that frightened the girl, and then she cried all the more, and seemed to shrink away as if in alarm, and yet almost angrily. Why would he speak so fiercely--why had he taken this advantage of her?