The next morning brought him back, with some strange translations and stranger foreign prints, where he knew my weakness; and I sat with the two of them, laughing and criticising the pictures or the writings until the luncheon time came, when it was impossible to turn a friend out of one's house, and I urged him myself to stay with us, by which it was near three when he set back to Arran Towers. On the following morning he came again, with a flimsy excuse concerning a mare he was thinking of purchasing; and so, by this and by that, he managed to spend most of his time at Stair, and in Nancy's society, seemingly unconscious of a wife he left at Arran for Sandy to console. I grew so anxious that I lost sleep, my appetite went from me; I would waken in the morning with a load on my breast as of guilt, and the thought before me of having a situation to handle which by a mistake of mine might be turned to a tragedy. Walking from the burn with Father Michel one day we saw Danvers Carmichael striding through the Holm gate toward Stair House, and the glance that passed between us told me without words that the holy father's thought was mine, which was that two people near Edinbro' Town were playing very close to the fire. "I've had some thought to speak to him of his conduct," Father Michel said, "but it would have more effect coming from you, my lord." As I entered the house, with a purpose half formed, I found Danvers in the hall talking to Dickenson, by whom Nancy had sent word that one of her headaches was upon her, and that she was, by reason of it, unable to see any one. The concern in Danvers's manner, the unconscious exhibition of tenderness in his voice, stiffened my half-formed resolution, and I did just what the impulse bade me. "Step into the library here, Danvers," said I. "I want a word with ye." He gave me a questioning look, following me with no words and stood waiting for me to speak after I had cautiously closed the door. "It's just come to this, Dandie," I said, "you must stop coming to this house as ye do! Until ye had a wife there was never one who entered the door more welcome, but as long as I have Nancy Stair to think about, ye'll just have to end these visits entirely. With the matter of an old love between you, an affair known to the whole town as well, your conduct is fair impossible, and, what is more, misunderstood!" And here again a difficult thing in him to handle appeared; never in his life had he known fear and a lie was a stranger to his lips, for his birth, gear, and rearing had given him a secured position in which he did as he chose, with excuses to none, and a be-damned-to-you attitude to all who found fault with him, and it was with the candor and shamelessness resulting from these that my dealings lay. "Misunderstood--how?" he repeated after me like an echo. "Well," said I, "the gossips will be having it that ye're in love with my daughter still."