And Margaret would flit along the broken ground where the potatoes had been, where her feet had made a path, and disappear into the sighing of the firs, which swept round and hid her amidst the perplexing crowd of their straight columns. There was one tree, beneath the sweeping branches of which some one was always waiting for her. It was a silver-fir, with great angular limbs, the biggest in the wood, and the little mossy knoll between its great roots was soft and green as velvet. There Rob Glen was always waiting, looking out anxiously through the clear evenings, and with a great gray plaid ready to wrap her in when it was cold or wet. They did not feel the rain under the great horizontal branches of the firs, and the soft pattering it made was more soothing than the wild sweep of the wind coming strong from the sea. There the two would sit sheltered, and look out upon the gray mass of Earl’s-hall, with that one ruddy lighted window. Margaret leaned upon her lover, whom, in her trouble, she did not think of as her lover, and cried and was comforted. He was the only one, she felt, except, perhaps, Bell, who was really good to her, who understood her, and did not want her to be composed and calm. He never said she should not cry, but kissed her hands and her cheek, and said soft caressing words: “My darling! my Margaret!” His heart was beating much more loudly than she could understand; but Rob, if he was not all good, had a certain tenderness of nature in him, and poetry of feeling which kept him from anything which could shock or startle her. At these moments, as the long summer day darkened and the soft gloaming spread over them, he was as nearly her true and innocent and generous lover as a man could be who was not always generous and true. He was betraying her, but to what?--only to accept his love, the best thing a man had to give; a gift, if you come to that, to give to a queen. He was not feigning nor deceiving, but loved her as warmly as if he had never loved any one before, nor meant to love any other again. And then he would go toward the house with her, not so far as he went that first night in over-boldness, when they were caught--an accident he always remembered with shame and self-reproach, yet a certain pride, as having proved to Randal Burnside, once for all, his own inferiority, and that he, Rob Glen, had hopelessly distanced all competitors, however they might build upon being gentlemen. He led her along the edge of the wood always under cover, and stole with her, under shadow of the garden-wall, to the corner, beyond which he did not venture. Then he would take her into his arms unresisted, and they would linger for a moment, while he lavished upon Margaret every tender name he could think of-- “Remember that I am always thinking of you, always longing to be by you, to support you, to comfort you, my darling.”