"She is all that," said the minister. "Was she dressed just like an ordinary gypsy body? But you don't notice clothes much, Gavin." "I noticed hers," Gavin said, slowly, "she was in a green and red, I think, and barefooted." "Ay," shouted Jean from the kitchen, startling both of them; "but she had a lang grey-like cloak too. She was seen jouking up closes in't." Gavin rose, considerably annoyed, and shut the parlour door. "Was she as bonny as folks say?" asked Margaret. "Jean says they speak of her beauty as unearthly." "Beauty of her kind," Gavin explained learnedly, "is neither earthly nor heavenly." He was seeing things as they are very clearly now. "What," he said, "is mere physical beauty? Pooh!" "And yet," said Margaret, "the soul surely does speak through the face to some extent." "Do you really think so, mother?" Gavin asked, a little uneasily. "I have always noticed it," Margaret said, and then her son sighed. "But I would let no face influence me a jot," he said, recovering. "Ah, Gavin, I'm thinking I'm the reason you pay so little regard to women's faces. It's no natural." "You've spoilt me, you see, mother, for ever caring for another woman. I would compare her to you, and then where would she be?" "Sometime," Margaret said, "you'll think differently." "Never," answered Gavin, with a violence that ended the conversation. Soon afterwards he set off for the town, and in passing down the garden walk cast a guilty glance at the summer-seat. Something black was lying in one corner of it. He stopped irresolutely, for his mother was nodding to him from her window. Then he disappeared into the little arbour. What had caught his eye was a Bible. On the previous day, as he now remembered, he had been called away while studying in the garden, and had left his Bible on the summer-seat, a pencil between its pages. Not often probably had the Egyptian passed a night in such company. But what was this? Gavin had not to ask himself the question. The gypsy's cloak was lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat. Why had the woman not taken it with her? Hardly had he put this question when another stood in front of it. What was to be done with the cloak? He dared not leave it there for Jean to discover. He could not take it into the manse in daylight. Beneath the seat was a tool-chest without a lid, and into this he crammed the cloak. Then, having turned the box face downwards, he went about his duties. But many a time during the day he shivered to the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this very moment Jean might be carrying the accursed thing (at arms' length, like a dog in disgrace) to his mother.