“Did we ever think the same? No, Lily. But so long as we feel the same--and it’s best to be on the safe side. I’ll say I have come over for the day from--what do you call that place?--Ardenlennie, on the other side, where I had to see Sir John’s man of business--which is true. And I found you coming out to pay your visit and came with you. Will that do?” “Oh, it will do as well as any other--false story,” said Lily, “if we are to go on telling lies all our days!” “Not all our days, I hope,” he said gently. He was very good to her. No lover could have been more devoted to her service, with no eyes or ears but for her. That ride, though Lily was not happy in the depths of her heart, though she was fretted almost beyond endurance, was yet sweet to her in spite of herself. “Do you mind how we careered along that other day, me riding, you running,” he said, “pushing at Rory behind, and pulling him before, and the poor little beast astonished with the weight on him of a long-legged chield instead of a bonnie lady? My Lily, what you did for me that day! What should I have done without you--at that or any other time?” “You have to do without me--not that I think I am much good--when you go away.” “Come,” he said, “you must not harp forever on this going away. Holloa!” he added immediately, retiring from her side with a sudden impulse as if some hand had pushed him away, “there is a man I know.” “A man you know!” she cried, startled, not so much by this intimation as by the start it produced in him. “Not a very creditable acquaintance,” he went on, with a short laugh, dropping Rory’s bridle and keeping, as Lily remarked with a pang, quite apart from her. “I thought he had been at the other end of the world. He is Alick Duff, one of the Duffs of Blackscaur. They were once the great people up here; but the present laird, I believe, is never at home. You might ride on while I say a word to him. He’s not an acquaintance for you.” Rory, however, at this moment did not show any inclination to quicken his pace, and Lily heard the greeting between the two men. “Holloa, Lumsden, is that you?” and “Duff! I thought you were at the other end of the world!” “Well, no, here I am--no in such clover as you,” said the new-comer, with a rough laugh. “Present me to the lady, Ronnie--Miss Ramsay, I’m sure.” “This is Mr. Alick Duff--Miss Ramsay,” Lumsden said with a dark color on his face. “We are going the same way.” “And I’m going the contrary road--I’m sorry,” said the stranger, who was a heavy man, older and far less well looking than Ronald. “I’m going to have a look at the old place and see if they’ll have any thing to say to me there. Then I’m off again to the ends of the world, as you say; and the further the better,” he added, again with a harsh laugh. Rory by this time had moved on, and Lily, though she heard the men’s voices almost loud on the still air, did not make out what they said. In a few moments Ronald rejoined her almost out of breath.