Mary, snatching away her hand, and before Ellis could arrest her, going back to John Grange’s side to lay that hand upon his shoulder, “I cannot stand here and listen to your cruel, unjust words; John Grange is not to blame, it was my doing entirely.”

“Shame upon you, then!”

“No, it is no shame,” she cried proudly. “You force me to defend myself before another, and I will speak out now before the man who has for long enough pestered me with his attentions, and whom, during these past few days, you have made your friend and encouraged to come home; let him hear then that I feel it no shame to say I love John Grange very dearly, and that I would not let him leave here, weak, suffering, and in the dark, without knowing that his love was returned.”

Then, bending down, she took John Grange’s hand, and raised it to her lips.

“Good-bye!” she said softly.

“Mary!” cried her father, beside himself now with rage; and he once more snatched her away.

“Yes, father, I am ready,” she said quietly; “and you, who are always so good and just, will tell John Grange that you have cruelly misjudged him, before he goes.”

But James Ellis did not then, for drawing his child’s arm through his own, he hurried her away from the bothy, and home in silence to the cottage, where she flung herself sobbing in her mother’s arms, and crouched there, listening, while the angry man walked up and down, relieving himself of all he had seen.

Mrs Ellis’s pleasant countenance grew full of puckers, and she sat in silence, softly patting Mary’s shoulder with one hand, holding her tightly with the other, till her husband had ended with—

“Disgraceful—disgraceful, I say. I don’t know what Mrs Mostyn would think if she knew.”

“Well, I don’t know, my dear,” sighed Mrs Ellis, with the tears gently trickling down her cheeks, and dropping one by one like dew-drops on Mary’s beautiful hair. “Mrs Mostyn has been a dear, good mistress to us.”

“Yes, and a pretty business for her to hear—our child degrading herself like this.”

“’Tis very sad, James, but Mrs Mostyn made a runaway match with Captain Mostyn.”

“Eliza, are you mad too?”

“No, James, dear; but I’m afraid these are mysteries that men don’t quite understand.”

“Bah!”

“But they do not, dear. If you remember, my poor dear dad and your father were very angry about your wanting me. Dad said you were only a common gardener, but I felt—”

“Woman, you are as bad as your daughter,” raged James Ellis. “Was I a poor blind man?”

“No, my dear; for you always had very, very fine eyes, but—”

“Bah!” raged out James Ellis; and he went out and banged the door.