"I am not so bad as that," Babbie answered, and told him what had brought her to Thrums. "I had no thought but of returning to you, nor he of keeping me from you. We had said good-by at the mudhouse door--and then we heard your voice." "And my voice was so horrible to you that it drove you to this?" "I--I love him so much." What more could Babbie answer? These words told him that, if love commands, home, the friendships of a lifetime, kindnesses incalculable, are at once as naught. Nothing is so cruel as love if a rival challenges it to combat. "Why could you not love me, Babbie?" said the earl sadly. "I have done so much for you." It was little he had done for her that was not selfish. Men are deceived curiously in such matters. When they add a new wing to their house, they do not call the action virtue; but if they give to a fellow-creature for their own gratification, they demand of God a good mark for it. Babbie, however, was in no mood to make light of the earl's gifts, and at his question she shook her head sorrowfully. "Is it because I am too--old?" This was the only time he ever spoke of his age to her. "Oh no, it is not that," she replied hastily, "I love Mr. Dishart--because he loves me, I think." "Have I not loved you always?" "Never," Babbie answered simply. "If you had, perhaps then I should have loved you." "Babbie," he exclaimed, "if ever man loved woman, and showed it by the sacrifices he made for her, I----" "No," Babbie said, "you don't understand what it is. Ah! I did not mean to hurt you." "If I don't know what it is, what is it?" he asked, almost humbly. "I scarcely know you now." "That is it," said Babbie. She gave him back his ring, and then he broke down pitifully. Doubtless there was good in him, but I saw him only once; and with nothing to contrast against it, I may not now attempt to breathe life into the dust of his senile passion. These were the last words that passed between him and Babbie: "There was nothing," he said wistfully, "in this wide world that you could not have had by asking me for it. Was not that love?" "No," she answered. "What right have I to everything I cry for?" "You should never have had a care had you married me. That is love." "It is not. I want to share my husband's cares, as I expect him to share mine." "I would have humored you in everything." "You always did: as if a woman's mind were for laughing at, like a baby's passions." "You had your passions, too, Babbie. Yet did I ever chide you for them? That was love." "No, it was contempt. Oh," she cried passionately, "what have not you men to answer for who talk of love to a woman when her face is all you know of her; and her passions, her aspirations, are for kissing to sleep, her very soul a plaything? I tell you, Lord Rintoul, and it is all the message I send back to the gentlemen at the Spittal who made love to me behind your back, that this is a poor folly, and well calculated to rouse the wrath of God."