‘This confounded country of yours!’ he said, ‘it is bad enough in daylight, but it’s horrible in the dark. Why did you keep me waiting so long at that infernal cottage-door?’ But he did not seem to notice the answer Isabel made in her dismay. And they swept along through the dark with nothing visible but the pale stars in the sky, and the great shadows of the hills, and glimmer of the larger loch on the other side of the braes to which they were descending; and nothing audible but the sharp din of the horse’s hoofs on the road, and Baby Margaret’s little murmurs as she nestled to her mother’s side. The curious oppression in Stapylton’s face made Isabel, too, hold her breath, though otherwise she would have felt no alarm upon the well-known way. But past agitation had unstrung her, and the thought of the struggle to come. ‘Would you give up your little bairn?’ Ailie’s words were still ringing in her ears, and she kept repeating to herself over and over, ‘Never, oh, never, if I should die!’ While this was going through her mind, Isabel, seated by her husband’s side, trembled with the question, What would he think if he knew her thoughts? What might he be thinking even now, so close to her that she could not move without touching him, so far off that her profoundest skill could not fathom what was in his mind? It was thus that they reached the first place which in their new-married life they could call home. With a relief which an hour before she could not have believed possible, Isabel placed her baby in the hands of Nelly Spence, who was waiting for them at the door. ‘You’ll take great care of her,’ she said, whispering, as she put the child into her arms. ‘Eh, aye, I’ll take awfu’ care of her,’ was the answer. And the young mother was glad to be thus relieved, to go to her husband, and do her best to conciliate and please him. The fire was burning brightly in the little bare dining-room, and the table spread; and Horace, still with cloudy looks, sat in a great armchair thrust back into the shadow. It was not home, but yet it was more like home than the honeymoon lodgings. It was, at least, their own house. She had come to him giving up her baby, feeling that such a sacrifice was his due; and, perhaps, she expected that some special word or look of tenderness should reward her. But it was soon evident that his mood was very far from lover-like. He burst out when she came up to the fire and stood with her face turned towards him in the full glow of the firelight. Her agitation had roused all the dormant expression in Isabel’s face. Her eyes looked larger, and were full of light and shadow. A tremulous colour went and came on her cheek. Her mouth was all trembling and eloquent with suppressed feeling, and the glimmering of the firelight gave a certain increase of effect to the whole. He did not even look at her at first, but suddenly burst out:--