"I ken I have--I ken I have!" she cried. "Oh, can you ever forgive me?" "Only, Charlotte," I answered nobly, "because I care for your happiness more than for my own!" "Oh, Duncan, but you are good!" She threw herself into my arms. I really think she mistook me for Agnes Anne for the moment. But any consolations I applied were, as before, in the interests of Tam Gallaberry. "I knew I was wicked and wrong all the time," she said, "but when we walked out, you remember the dyke we used to lean against" (she glanced up at me with simple child-like eyes, tear-stained), "you must remember? Well, one of the stones was loose. And Tam used to put one letter there, and I took it out and slid it in my pocket, and put mine back the same! Agnes Anne was looking the other way, of course, and you--you----" "Was otherwise employed than thinking of such deceit!" I said grandly. "You were kissing me! And I let you--for Tam's sake," Charlotte murmured, smiling. "Otherwise the poor fellow would have had five miles to come that next day, and I could not bear that he should not find his letter!" "No!" I answered dryly, "it would certainly have been a pity." She looked at me curiously. "Do you know," she said, "I always thought that _you_ were playing, too!" "Playing!" I exclaimed tragically. "Is it possible? Oh, Lottie!" "Oh, I just thought it," she said remorsefully. "I am sorry if it was true--if you do really care about me so much--as all that!" I was still thinking of Tam Gallaberry. So apparently was she. Virtue is its own reward, and so is mutual consolation. It is very consoling. Half the happy love stories in the world begin that way--just with telling about the unhappy ones that went before. You take my word for it--I, Duncan MacAlpine, know what I am talking about. Charlotte Anderson too. So finally, after a while, I became very noble and said what a fine thing it was to give up something very precious for others. And I asked her if she could think of anything much nobler than willingly to give up as fine a girl as herself--Charlotte Anderson--for the sake of Tam Gallaberry? She thought awhile and said she could not. So I told her we must keep up appearances for a time, till we had made our arrangements what to do. Charlotte said that she had no objections as long as Tam Gallaberry did not know. So I said that she could write a long letter that very night, and give it to Agnes Anne in the morning, and I would go out to the stone, and put it underneath. Then she cried, "Oh, will you?" And thanked me ever so sweetly, asking if, when I was about it, would I bring back the one I found there and send it to her by my sister, in another envelope--"just over the top, you know, without breaking the seal. Because such letters were sacred." I said she need not trouble herself. I was only doing all this for her sake. I did not want to see what another man had to say to her!