’Ay!’ cried Burns, ’and what right had you, or any fellow-creature, to hector, catechise and insult me as did you in that letter? To a man of my temper, ’twas intolerable, and every drop of black blood in my veins rose at the injury. I had the creature Nicol at my elbow, and he made me write some trash—I mind not what—to you. But the real mischief was that your ill-judged and insolent order sent me, by provocation, hot-foot to your cousin’s—ay, by night, too—and we were alone.... I outstayed—indeed, I did most damnably outstay, decorum’s hour—and I will not say what devil whispered in my ear ... for opportunity and the fair one both were kind. Then there comes upon us, out of her first sleep, the lassie Graham. Ecod! I see her yet—the round eyes of her, like a bairn’s, staring at me; the flounces of her night-rail, her bare bit feet. Up she comes, and takes the woman from my very arms into her own, as had she been an infant, showing me the door the while wi’ the gait o’ a queen. ’Od, ’tis not often Robbie Burns has played so poor a part in an affair of that kind! I e’en slunk out o’ the house like a whipped tyke wi’ his tail atween his legs. And so the lass better’d me—and maybe saved the honour of your house. And for all reward you cast her off!’ Herries had turned from white to red, and from red to white again, during this recital. But now his eyes glittered with a cold anger. ’You are utterly unjust as to my part in the affair,’ he said deliberately. ’Your own letter, which you slur over so easily, was a tissue of falsehood—if what you now tell me be true—and it was written with intent to mislead me. Every word and every act of my cousin’s was studied to the same end. I was hedged in with lies. Of those who wronged Miss Graham, I certainly was not the guilty one; I utterly deny it. I was the catspaw of others infinitely unscrupulous. If I did Miss Graham an injustice, I deeply deplore it; but I was not responsible.’ Burns eyed the speaker long and curiously—ironically, indeed. ’The legal mind, I see, sir, lights on the cold justice of the case at once, and banishes emotion and romance,’ he said. ’Let me tell you, here and now, how I repent my part in the unlucky business. The letter I sent you was Nicol’s, in truth, and not mine. In a sober mood I’d not have lent myself to such a trick; but I was drunk, and there was my disgrace. I ask your pardon, as one erring human being asks pardon of another, who, in his turn, must be a supplicant for grace before the Throne of God.... Or is Mr. Herries, indeed, above his fellows, and in no need of pity and forgiveness from above?’ Herries frowned—the annoyed frown of a man to whom heroics are distasteful. ’It is a Christian duty to forgive,’ he said coldly. ’Your injury to me I do forgive, but your injury to another was far deeper, and confession and repentance, sir, have come a little late.’