The Hill Before Darkness Fell 291

that the distance was too great, though frailer
folk than I walked twenty miles to hear him.
We might have parted thus had we not wandered
by chance to the very spot where I had met him
and Babbie. ‘There is a seat there now for those
who lose their breath on the climb up, and so I
have two reasons nowadays for not passing the
place by.

We read each other’s thoughts, and Gavin said,
calmly, “I have not seen her since that night.
She disappeared as into a grave.”

How could I answer when I knew that Babbie
was dying for want of him, not half a mile away?

“You seemed to understand everything that
night,” he went on; “or if you did not, your
thoughts were very generous to me.”

In my sorrow for him I did not notice that we
were moving on again, this time in the direction
of Windyghoul.

“‘ She was only a gypsy girl,” he said, abruptly,
and I nodded. “But I hoped,” he continued,
“ that she would be my wife.”

“ T understood that,” I said.

“There was nothing monstrous to you,” he
asked, looking me in the face, “in a minister’s
marrying a gypsy?”

I own that if I hadloved a girl, how ever far below
or above me in degree, I would have married her
had she been willing to take me. But to Gavin
I only answered, “ These are matters a man must
decide for himself.”

“T had decided for myself,” he said, emphati-
cally.

“Yet,” I said, wanting him to talk to me of