‘Oh, lassie, speak the truth!’ said Jean. ‘You ken weel, and a’ the Loch kens, that you have mair power over him than kith and kin--aye, or the very Presbytery itself. But you’re that perverse, ye’ll listen to nobody; and I doubt but ye’ve been unkind to him, or gibed at him, puir man! and he has nae fault that I ken of but his years.’ ‘I don’t think he is very old,’ said Isabel, half under her breath; and she went away into the little parlour which he had decorated for her, and sat down by the window, all alone, without even taking off her bonnet. Never before in her life had she been conscious of having anything so important to think about. Thinking had nothing to do with the matter when Stapylton was concerned. It was nothing but a struggle then between her love and grief--between the lover’s eager wishes on one hand, and all the tender decorums of life, all the claims of the past, on the other. She had struggled, but she had not required to think. But now there had come such an occasion for thought as she had never before known. The question was not one of inclination or any such urgent motive for or against as should have settled it for her, without loss of time; on the contrary, it was of the very nature of those questions which demand the clearest thought. Love, as she had apprehended it once, had floated altogether away, she told herself, out of her life. Of that there was to be no more question, either then or for ever; but yet life would not end because it had been thus divested of its highest beauty. And Isabel knew she was young, and felt that she had a long existence before her. Was she to do nothing for the comfort of that existence--nothing to win it out of the mists and dreams? She sat down breathless, her heart heaving with the agitation through which she had lately passed, her nature all astir and moved by a hundred questionings. She did not love Mr. Lothian. Love was over for her--gone out of her life like a tale that is told; but life had to continue all the same: and what kind of life?