Alison’s eyes looked round the room in a vain search for help. They fell on Nicol, who, crassly ignorant of the real circumstances of her case, could hardly have helped her, and certainly would not if he could. They fell on Burns, but Burns was drunk, and had he been sober, must sooner have protected the woman he had nearly ruined than helpless Alison. Alison’s eyes fell to the ground, and all the long struggle of the past weeks concentrated itself in the anguish of one moment’s swift decision. Her happiness, or Nancy’s honour—which? Her chin sank upon her breast: she seemed to shrink—the image of shame. ’I ... I have deceived you, sir,’ she stammered, with lips that scarcely moved. It was the truth, but so little of it, and so hopelessly perverted! Alison raised her eyes to her lover’s face, and he should have read the real truth in them, but he was blind. ’That’s enough,’ was all he said. ’I have asked and you have answered. On your own head be it!’ For a few seconds no one moved in the dead silence. The poet, half asleep, with his chin upon his chest, lurched and swayed, now one way, and now another. Herries’s eyes flamed, as they looked at him, with the cold flame of disgust and hate. ’Your host is drunk,’ he said to Alison, almost cavalierly. He had become icily cool, and the crisp tones of his business manner came to him, as though he stood in his own orderly office with a client in front of him. ’I cannot leave you here, you understand,’ he continued, addressing her; ’you are in my relative’s care, and I am her representative. You must leave this house—for the present, at least—and leave it with me.’ He went to the door, and opened it, with a gesture that seemed to command rather than to solicit her exit. No one interfered, not even Nicol moved or spoke. With bowed head, Alison walked slowly from the room. And as she did so, the swaying figure of Burns, supine, fell prostrate on the table in a drunken sleep. Out of doors it was raining, pouring with rain out of the black night sky. Neither Alison nor her companion could shelter themselves, and the gusty wind blew in their bent faces as they struggled along. A link-boy’s torch flashed at the corner of the square, and at the end of Princes Street there was a pack of chairmen sheltering under a wall, for it was an Assembly night. ’I will see you under shelter and in safety,’ said Herries, speaking for the first time. ’But after that I can never willingly see your face again. Do you understand?’ He had to raise his voice against the wind and the hiss and patter of the rain.