"When I came out again your mother was no longer at our door, and you were crying because I had left you. I passed you and walked straight to the house. Margaret was skinning rushes for wicks. There must have been fear in my face, for as soon as she saw it she ran to the door to see if you were still alive. She brought you in with her, and so had strength to cry, 'What is it? Speak!' "'Come away,' I said, 'come away,' and I was drawing her to the door, but she pressed me into a chair. I was up again at once. "'Margaret,' I said, 'ask no questions. Put on your bonnet, give me the boy, and let us away.' "I could not take my eyes off the door, and she was walking to it to look out when I barred the way with my arm. "'What have you seen?' she cried; and then, as I only pointed to her bonnet, she turned to you, and you said, 'Was it the black dog, father?' "Gavin, then she knew; and I stood helpless and Watched my wife grow old. In that moment she lost the sprightliness I loved the more because I had none of it myself, and the bloom went from her face never to return. "'He has come back,' she said. "I told her what I had seen, and while I spoke she put on her bonnet, and I exulted, thinking--and then she took off her bonnet, and I knew she would not go away with me. "'Margaret,' I cried, 'I am that bairn's father.' "'Adam's my man,' she said, and at that I gave her a look for which God might have struck me dead. But instead of blaming me she put her arms round my neck. "After that we said very little. We sat at opposite sides of the fire, waiting for him, and you played on the floor. The harvesters trooped by, and there was a fiddle; and when it stopped, long stillness, and then a step. It was not Adam. You fell asleep, and we could hear nothing but the sea. There was a harvest moon. "Once a dog ran past the door, and we both rose. Margaret pressed her hands on her breast. Sometimes she looked furtively at me, and I knew her thoughts. To me it was only misery that had come, but to her it was shame, so that when you woke and climbed into her lap she shivered at your touch. I could not look at her after that, for there was a horror of me growing in her face. "Ten o'clock struck, and then again there was no sound but the sea pouring itself out on the beach. It was long after this, when to me there was still no other sound, that Margaret screamed, and you hid behind her. Then I heard it. "'Gavin,' Margaret said to me, 'be a good man all your life.' "It was louder now, and then it stopped. Above the wash of the sea we heard another sound--a sharp tap, tap. You said, 'I know what sound that is; it's a man knocking the ashes out of his pipe against his boot.' "Then the dog pushed the door off the latch, and Adam lurched in. He was not drunk, but he brought the smell of drink into the room with him. He was grinning like one bringing rare news, and before she could shrink back or I could strike him he had Margaret in his arms.