For her my tears shall fall, For her my prayers ascend: To her my cares and toils be given Till toils and cares shall end!" "_And_ three cheers for the Doctor!" shouted swearing Imrie, who had been worked up by the events of the day to such a pitch of excitement that only the sound of his own thunderous voice had power to calm him. And douce Cameronians coming over Eden Valley hill stood still and wondered at the profanation of the holy day, not knowing. Even sober pillars of the Kirk Erastian going homeward smiled and shook their heads pityingly. "It was doubtless a good thing," said my father to a fellow elder, a certain McMinn of the Croft, "to see so many of the wild and regardless at the Kirk, but I'm sore mistaken if there's not some of the old Adam left in the best of them yet, to judge by the noise they are making down yonder." "Except Israel himsel'!" said McMinn of the Croft, "man, dominie, since he converted Jock, my ploughman, he hasna been drunk yince, and I get twice the work oot o' the craitur for the same wage." Which, being the proof of the pudding, settled the question. CHAPTER XLI IN THE WOOD PARLOUR On the 19th of October the sky overhead was clear as sapphire, but all round the circle of the horizon the mists of autumn blurred the landscape. The hills stood no more in their places. Gone were the Kips, with their waving lines. Of the Cruives, with the heather thick and purple upon them, not a trace. Gone the graceful swirl of the Cooran Hill, which curls over like a wave just feathering to break. To Irma it had been a heavy and a sorrowful day. She had actually wept, and even gone on her knees to her brother to beg him tell her what strange thing had come between them. He would only answer, "You have chosen your path without consulting me. Now I choose mine." She charged him with listening to one who had always been an enemy of all who had been good to him ever since he was a little child--of setting himself against those on whose bounty they had lived. He replied, "If I have lived on their bounty, they know very well that they will not lose by it." She mentioned Lalor Maitland's name, and told him the history of the early attacks on the house of Marnhoul. Louis answered, "He has explained all that. It was done to save me from these people who were already besetting me, in order to rob me." When she mentioned all that I had done for him, he put on an air of frigid detachment. "You are right, no doubt, to stand up for your husband," he said; "but, then, I have not the same reasons. I can judge for myself." Then she went on to show that there was no motive for the Lyons of Heathknowes showing them any interested kindness. As for me, she had only brought me herself and her love--no money, nor would she ever have any money--I had married her for herself. "So would Lalor Maitland," he retorted, "and he is a gentleman."