He would have passed her to leave the room. But Lady Florimel could not bear defeat. In any contest she must win or be shamed in her own eyes, and was she to gain absolutely nothing in such a passage with a fisher-lad? Was the billow of her persuasion to fall back from such a rock, self-beaten into poorest foam? She would, she must subdue him! Perhaps she did not know how much the sides of her intent were pricked by the nettling discovery that she was not the cause of his unhappiness. “You’re not going to leave me so!” she exclaimed, in a tone of injury. “I’ll gang or bide as ye wull, my leddy,” answered Malcolm resignedly. “Bide then,” she returned. “--I haven’t half done with you yet.” “Ye maun jist tear my hert oot,” he rejoined--with a sad half smile, and another of his dog-like looks. “That’s what you would do to your mother!” said Florimel severely. “Say nae ill o’ my mither!” cried Malcolm, suddenly changing almost to fierceness. “Why, Malcolm!” said Florimel, bewildered, “what ill was I saying of her?” “It’s naething less than an in_sult_ to my mither to ca’ yon wuman by her name,” he replied with set teeth. It was to him an offence against the idea of motherhood--against the mother he had so often imagined luminous against the dull blank of memory, to call such a woman his mother. “She’s a very ladylike, handsome woman--handsome enough to be _your_ mother even, Mr Malcolm Stewart.” Florimel could not have dared the words but for the distance between them; but, then, neither would she have said them while the distance was greater! They were lost on Malcolm though, for never in his life having started the question whether he was handsome or not, he merely supposed her making game of him, and drew himself together in silence, with the air of one bracing himself to hear and endure the worst. “Even if she should not be your mother,” his tormentor resumed, “to show such a dislike to any woman is nothing less than cruelty.” “She maun pruv’ ’t,” murmured Malcolm--not the less emphatically that the words were but just audible. “Of course she will do that; she has abundance of proof. She gave me a whole hour of proof.” “Lang’s no strang,” returned Malcolm “there’s comfort i’ that! Gang on my leddy.” “Poor woman! it was hard enough to lose her son; but to find him again such as you seem likely to turn out, _I_ should think ten times worse.” “Nae doobt! nae doobt!--But there’s ae thing waur.” “What is that?” “To come upon a mither ’at----” He stopped abruptly; his eyes went wandering about the room, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively. Florimel saw that she had been driving against a stone wall. She paused a moment, and then resumed. “Anyhow, if she _is_ your mother,” she said, “nothing you can do will alter it.” “She maun pruv’ ’t,” was all Malcolm’s dogged reply. “Just so; and if she can’t,” said Florimel, “you’ll be no worse than you were before--and no better,” she added with a sigh.