Then there comes a stir, a bustle--the noise of feet--the sound of voices. Nannie sits up erect and listens. "They're coming back," she says. He turns very white again, then looks appealingly at the old woman. "I can't face them all--it's impossible," he says. "But if I could see her alone--just for five minutes. Oh, Nannie, manage it for me! I know you can." "I'll e'en do my best," she says, rising and hobbling away on her stick, her grey silk gown rustling, her snowy cap, with its lavender ribbons, carried very erect on her white head. "But ye'll nae be cross to the bonnie bairn. I canna have her frightened and disturbed on sic a day. Ye'll mind?" "Oh yes--yes. I'll mind!" he says impatiently. "Only send her here." He never knows if the time is long or short that he waits--waits with his heart beating so hard and fast that he can hear it above all those other sounds without. Waits in a sort of sullen desperation, knowing that his pain will be but the fiercer, his anger but the hotter, for the interview he has demanded. Then there comes a faint rustle of silken skirts, the door opens, there is a sweet subtle perfume of orange-flowers and roses, and before him stands the loveliest vision of womanhood that his eyes have ever rested on. One moment he looks at her, and all his anger melts away, and an unutterable reproach speaks in his eyes, that are "bad" blue eyes no longer, but only very sad and very haunting. "Oh, Lauraine!" he says, and his arms go out to clasp her as in the old sweet days that are gone for ever, and sobbing wildly, the girl falls upon his breast. CHAPTER III A moment, and she remembers! With flushed cheeks and tear-wet eyes she wrenches herself away, and looks up at the face of her old playmate. "Oh, Keith!" she says, "I--I was so glad to see you!" The poor pitiful pretence does not blind him. He looks at her sternly. "Indeed? And may I ask for an explanation of your conduct? I think it is due to me. Why have you broken faith?" She turns deadly pale. "We were never really engaged," she stammers, "and all those years you never wrote, and I thought----" "You did _not_!" he says fiercely. "You know me better than that. I am no saint, but I am no mawkish lover either, to fly from one woman's feet to another, and pour out love vows at fancy. You knew I would be true, Lauraine, and you--you have been false." She trembles, and is silent. He looks at her longingly--thirstily, his eyes taking in all the beauty he so well remembers--all the changes time has wrought. It maddens him to gaze upon her--to think she is so utterly lost to him. He feels there is nothing so cruel, so fierce, he could not say to her at this moment, if only to inflict upon her some of the pain, the agony that throbs in his own heart, and runs riot in his own veins.