“What are you, then?” he cried, with a laugh of scorn. “If you’ve kept your father’s name, you are just Lily Ramsay to Alick Duff, and nothing else. Our forefathers have known each other for hundreds of years. There was even a kind of a cousinship, a grandmother of mine that was a Ramsay, or yours that was a Duff, I cannot remember; but if you expect me, that knew you before you were born, to stand on ceremony--and Lumsden too,” he added, in a lower tone, “whatever you may be to him.” “If it was my concerns you asked me out here to discuss, I think I will go in,” said Lily, “for it is cold out of doors, and I have nothing to say to you.” “You know well whose concerns it was. Is she coming? Does she understand that it’s for the last time? I know what she thinks. I’ve been such a fool hitherto she thinks I will be as great a fool as ever, and come hankering after her to the stroke of doom. If she thinks that, let her think it no more. This time I will never come back. I will just let myself go. Oh, it’s easier, far easier, than to hold yourself in, even a little bit, as I’ve done. I’ve always had the fear of her before my eyes. I’ve always said to myself: ‘Not that! not that! or she will never speak to me again;’ but now----” He swung his fist once more with a menacing gesture through the dim air. It seemed to Lily as if he were shaking it in the face of Heaven. “And you don’t think shame to say so!” cried Lily, tremulous with cold and agitation, and finding no argument but this, which she had used before. “Why should I think shame? There are things a woman like Eelen Blythe can look over, but there are some you would not let her hear of, not to save your soul. It’s a matter of saving a man’s soul, Lily Ramsay, whatever ye may think. The worst is she knows every word I have to say: there’s nothing new to tell her--except just this,” he said with vehement emphasis: “that this time I will never come back!” “And that is not new either. I have heard you tell her so fifty times. Oh, man,” cried Lily, “cannot you go and leave her at peace? She will never forget you, but she will accept what cannot be helped. Me, I fight against it, but I have to submit too. And Helen will not fight. She will just live quiet and say her prayers for you night and day.” “Her prayers! I want herself to stand by my side and keep my heart.” “You would be better with her prayers than with many a woman’s company. Your heart! Can you not pluck up a spirit and stand for God and what is right without Helen? How will you do it with her, then? You would mind her at first--oh, I do not doubt every word she said--but then you would get impatient, and cry: ‘Hold your tongue, woman!’” “Is that,” he cried quickly, “what he says to you? He is just a sneaking coward, and that I would tell him to his face!”