And the hands that had been clasped on my arm of their own sweet accord stole upward and rested lovingly about my neck. The eyes that had looked so keenly into mine were satisfied at last, and with a long sobbing sigh of content Mary Gordon’s head pillowed itself on my breast. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE LAST ROARING OF THE BULL. “Come,” she said, after a while, “let us go to my father!” And now, the rubicon being passed, there shone a quick and alert gladness upon her face. Her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground. The mood of sedateness had passed away, and she hummed a gay tune as we went down the stairs. Alexander Gordon was coming across the yard to speak with his wife as Mary and I appeared hand in hand at the stair foot. He stopped as it had been suddenly aghast when he caught sight of us. “Mary!” he cried. She nodded and made him a little prim curtesy. “What means this?” he said, sternly. “Just that Quintin and I love one another!” And as she spoke I saw the frown gather ominously on Alexander Gordon’s face. His wife came near and looked at him. I saw him flash a glance at her so quick, so stern, and full of meaning that the ready river of her speech froze on her lips. “This is rank foolishness, Mary!” he cried; “go indoors this instant and get to your broidering. Let me hear no more of this!” But the spirit of the Gordons was in the daughter as well as in the sire. “I will not,” she said; “I am of age, and though in all else I have obeyed you, in this I will not.” Glance for glance their eyes encountered, nor could I see that either pair quailed. The Laird of Earlstoun turned to me. “And you, sir, whom I trusted as my friend, how came you here under pretext of amity, thus to lead away my daughter?” The question was fiercely spoken, the tone sullenly angry. Yet somehow both rang hollow. I was about to answer when Mary interrupted. “Nay, father,” she cried, looking him fearlessly in the face; “it was I that proffered my love. He _would_ not ask me, though I tried to make him. I had to tell him that I loved him, and make him ask me to marry him!” Was it fancy that the flicker of a smile passed at that moment over the grim countenance of the Bull? His wife was again about to speak, but he turned fiercely on her and bade her be silent. “And now,” he said, turning to his daughter, “what do you propose to do with your man when ye have ‘speered’ him?” He used the local country expression for a proposal of marriage. “I will marry him here and now,” she said; adding hastily, “that is, if he will have me.” “Ye had better speer him that too!” said her father, grimly. “I will do better,” cried Mary Gordon. “I will acknowledge him!” And holding up my hand in hers she cried aloud: “I take you for my husband, Quintin MacClellan!” She looked up at me with a challenge in her eye. “_My wife!_” was all that I could utter.