‘Where? what does it matter where? It might be here for anything I care; but all this ridiculous set would object, and there would be time lost, and the news would be sent home. Come with me now--come to-morrow. What does it matter? You have no invalid to keep you back. What! offended again? How is a plain man to understand all your fancies? If you like to be gloomy and cry I can’t help it, Isabel; but what is the good of dwelling on the past? You did all you could be expected to do, and more. Surely you may think of yourself now.’ ‘It is you that does not understand,’ said Isabel, with a sudden movement of indignation, withdrawing from him. ‘What can I say that will make you understand?’ ‘I don’t want to understand!’ he cried. ‘Come, Isabel, don’t keep me in pain. If you’ll meet me here to-morrow I’ll arrange everything to-night. We’ll go to Kilcranion and get the steamer there, and reach either Glasgow or Edinburgh in the evening. Isabel! no, you shan’t go away! You can leave a note for your stepmother. Surely, I am more to you than she is. You will make me happy, and make everything possible. It is best to write and tell them after it is done. We’ll go and see everything together; and you never were out of your parish before. Isabel, it will bring back the roses to your cheeks again.’ He held her hand, though she struggled away from him, and bent forward gazing into her face. Isabel’s pale cheeks grew crimson with a violent blush; all at once life and force and strength seemed to pour back into her heart with this wild temptation which shook her to the very depth of her being. The stream had sunk so low that this sudden tide swelled all her veins to bursting, and brought noises to her ears, the sound of awakening, confused hum and buzz of every pulse, of her breathing and her heart. Escape out of this grey atmosphere into the ideal light--out of this chill into the warmth of love--out of this stillness into movement and music and sunshine, and all the stir of common life. But again with equal suddenness a sense of the chill, the grey landscape, the falling night, the heavy evening dew came back to her, quenching out the light and stilling the sounds. She uttered a heavy sigh, she clasped her hands together as if relinquishing all outside aid. ‘And Margaret not three weeks in her grave!’ That was all she could find to say. ‘What has that to do with it?’ said Stapylton, ‘you sacrificed yourself to her when she was living--and are you to make no use of your freedom now she is dead? _She_ can’t feel it _now_: what will it matter to her whether you are here or with me? You are free now; go where you like, it can’t affect her any more.’ He had taken her hand again, but she wrung it out of his almost with violence; a dull flush came over her of nervous passion. ‘You neither understand her nor me,’ she said, with a pang in her heart. ‘Oh, how dare you speak--how dare you speak?’ and in her anger she stamped her foot upon the yielding turf.