She set a dish on the cloth, and as she brought her hand back she laid it on mine quickly, and, looking up with such a warm light of gracious wisdom and approval in her eyes that my heart was like water within me, she said: “Quintin, you are a truer man than I thought. I love your silences better than your speeches.” And at her words my heart gave a great bound within me, for I thought that at last she understood. Then she passed away, and became even more cold and distant than before, not even bidding me farewell when I took my departure. But as I went down the loaning with her father she looked out of the turret window, and waved the hand that had lain for an instant upon mine. CHAPTER XXXI. THE FALL OF EARLSTOUN. It was toward the mellow end of August that there came a sough of things terrible wafted down the fair glen of the Kens, a sough which neither lost in volume nor in bitterness when it turned into the wider strath of the Dee. It arrived in time at the Manse of Balmaghie, as all things are sure to turn manseward ere a day pass in the land of Galloway. One evening in the quiet space between the end of hay and the first sickle-sweep of harvest, Hob came in with more than his ordinary solemn staidness. But he said nothing till we were over with the taking of the Book and ready to go to bed. Then as he was winding the watch I had brought him from Edinburgh he glanced up once at me. “When ye were last at Earlstoun,” he said, “heard ye any news?” I thought he meant at first that Mary was to be married, and it may be that my face showed too clearly the anxiety of the heart. “About Sandy himself?” he hastened to add. “About Alexander Gordon?” cried I in astonishment. “What ill news would I hear about Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun?” He nodded, finished the winding of his horologe, held it gravely to his ear to assure himself that it was going, and then nodded again. For that was Hob’s way. “Well,” he said, “the Presbytery have had him complained of to them for drunkenness and worse. And they will excommunicate him with the greatest excommunication if he decline their authority.” “But Earlstoun is not of their communion,” I cried, much astonished, the matter being none of the Presbytery’s business; “he is of the Hill-folk, an elder and mainstay among them for thirty years.” “The Presbytery have made it their business because he is a well-wisher of yours,” said Hob. “Besides, the report of it has already gone abroad throughout the land, and they say that the matter will be brought before the next general meeting of the societies.” “And in the meantime?” I began. “In the meantime,” said Hob, “those of the Hill-folk who form the Committee of the Seven Thousand have suspended him from his eldership!” Hob paused, as he ever did when he had more to tell, and was considering how to begin. “Go on, Hob,” cried I--testily enough, I fear.