Leading to the Appalling Marriage 327

all have kept it. But shall we who are old smile
cynically at the brief and burning passion of the
young? “The day,” you say, “will come
when—” Good sir, hold your peace. Their
agony was great and now is dead, and, maybe,
they have forgotten where it lies buried; but
dare you answer lightly when I ask you which
of these things is saddest?

Babbie believed his “ Never,” and, doubtless,
thought no worse of him for it; but she saw no
way of comforting him save by disparagement of
herself.

“You must think of your congregation,” she
said. ‘A minister with a gypsy wife —”

“Would have knocked them about with a
flail,” Gavin interposed, showing his teeth at the
thought of the precentor, “until they did her
reverence.

She shook her head, and told him of her meet-
ing with Micah Dow. It silenced him; not,
however, on account of its pathos, as she thought,
but because it interpreted the riddle of Rob’s
behaviour.

“ Nevertheless,” he said, ultimately, “ my duty
is not to do what is right in my people’s eyes,
but what seems right in my own.”

Babbie had not heard him.

“<T saw a face at the window just now,” she
whispered, drawing closer to him.

“There was no face there; the very thought
of Rob Dow raises him before you,” Gavin
answered, reassuringly, though Rob was nearer at
that moment than either of them thought.

“T must go away at once,” she said, still with