302 The Little Minister

forgave me for going away. ‘There is nothing
more to tell except that on the night of the riot
it was not my gypsy nature that brought me to
Thrums, but a desire to save the poor weavers.
I had heard Lord Rintoul and the sheriff dis-
cussing the contemplated raid. I have hidden
nothing from you. In time, perhaps, I shall
have suffered sufficiently for all my wickedness.”

Gavin rose weariedly, and walked through the
mud house looking at her.

“This is the end of it all,” he said, harshly,
coming to a standstill. ‘I love you, Babbie.”

“* No,” she answered, shaking her head. “You
never knew me until now, and so it was not me
you loved. I know what you thought I was, and
I will try to be it now.”

“If you had only told me this before,” the
minister said, sadly, “it might not have been too
lates*

“T only thought you like all the other men I
knew,” she replied, “ until the night I came to the
manse. It was only my face you admired at first.”

“No, it was never that,” Gavin said with such
conviction that her mouth opened in alarm to
ask him if he did not think her pretty. She
did not speak, however, and he continued, “ You
must have known that I loved you from the first
night.”

“No; you only amused me,” she said, like
one determined to stint nothing of the truth.
“Even at the well I laughed at your vows.”

This wounded Gavin afresh, wretched as her
story had made him, and he said, tragically, “You
have never cared for me at all.”