CHAPTER XXXII
LEADING SWIFTLY TO THE APPALLING MARRIAGE

HE little minister bowed his head in assent

when Babbie’s cry, “ Oh, Gavin, do you?”

leapt in front of her unselfish wish that he should
care for her no more.

“ But that matters very little now,” he said.

She was his to do with as he willed ; and, per-
haps, the joy of knowing herself loved still begot
a wild hope that he would refuse to give her up.
If so, these words laid it low, but even the

.sentence they passed upon her could not kill
the self-respect that would be hers henceforth.
“That matters very little now,” the man said, but
to the woman it seemed to matter more than
anything else in the world.

Throughout the remainder of this interview
until the end came, Gavin never faltered. His
duty and hers lay so plainly before him that
there could be no straying from it. Did Babbie
think him strangely calm? At the Glen Quhar-
ity gathering I once saw Rob Angus lift a boulder
with such apparent ease that its weight was dis-
credited, until the cry arose that the effort had
dislocated his arm. Perhaps Gavin’s quietness
deceived the Egyptian similarly. Had he stamped,
she might have understood better what he suffered,
standing there on the hot embers of his passion.

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