‘And now I must go away,’ he said, rising, with a smile gleaming out under the unshed tear. ‘It’s the hour of the bairns’ dinner, and a kind of necessity was upon me to come and see you. No; I’ll take nothing. The afternoon school is not so long. God bless you, Isabel! and guide you aright--in----’ He broke off in the middle of the sentence, as if (she thought) there was something he could not trust himself to say--and went away without looking round, or adding any ordinary farewell. But his agitation did not wound or even surprise Isabel. She dried her own wet eyes when he was gone, and tried to throw herself back, as he had told her, into ‘yon year’--the year of her marriage--when she had been worshipped like something divine, and guarded as the apple of her husband’s eyes. ‘You should be proud of the past,’ her Mentor had said. And Isabel had strained at it, trying with all her might to bring it back to her mind; but could not. Her imagination rushed instead to that meeting on the hill-side under Ardnamore, to every word, every look, every tone of that strange interview. Oh, how bitter it was, to be unable to control her thoughts, or turn them as she would, or keep them to matters which her mind could approve. They escaped from her with a leap to go to _him_; and with a guilty pang at her heart, Isabel felt that the bitter was not so poignant, not so irresistible as the sweet. Baby Margaret woke, and began to cry from the inner room, while her mother sat lost in this struggle. Isabel rose with the alacrity of custom to take the child; but Jean rushed suddenly in before her, and had the infant in her arms before the mother could reach it. Jean was pale, and her eyes all a-glow with excitement. ‘Na, na,’ she said, holding the child fast, ‘leave her with me. There’s ane coming up the brae, Isabel, that ye’ll have to see.’ ‘Give me my bairn,’ said the poor young mother with a cry; and then she sank trembling in a chair, her very limbs failing under her. Half defiant, half sympathetic, Jean stood before her with the baby in her arms. ‘It’s no fit she should be here. You’ll have to see him, and to say what’s to be. But, oh, Isabel, dinna forget that you have a bairn!’ said Jean, with sudden tears. ‘No till I forget myself,’ said Isabel, not knowing what she said; and then there was a sudden stillness round her, and she became aware that she was face to face with her fate.