"Why does Miss Gilchrist sigh?" I whispered. "Does she recall absent friends?
She turned her head swiftly in my direction; it was the only sign of surprise she deigned to make. At the same time I stepped forward into the light and bowed profoundly.
"You!" she said. "Here?"
"Yes, I am here," I replied. "I have come very far, it may be a hundred and fifty leagues, to see you. I have waited all this night In your garden. Will Miss Gilchrist not offer her hand—to a friend in trouble?"
She extended it between the bars, and I dropped upon one knee on the wet path, and kissed it twice. At the second it was withdrawn suddenly, methought with more of a start than she had hitherto displayed. I regained my former attitude, and we were both silent awhile. My timidity returned on me tenfold. I looked in her face for any signals of anger, and seeing her eyes to waver and fall aside from mine, augured that all was well.
"You must have been mad to come here!" she broke out. "Of all places under heaven, this is no place for you to come. And I was just thinking you were safe in France!"
"You were thinking of me!" I cried.
"Mr. St. Ives, you cannot understand your danger," she replied. "I am sure of it, and yet I cannot find it in my heart to tell you. O be persuaded, and go!"
"I believe I know the worst. But I was never one to set an undue value on life, the life that we share with beasts. My university has been in the wars, not a famous place of education, but one where a man learns to carry his life in his hand as lightly as a glove, and for his lady or his honour to lay it as lightly down. You appeal to my fears, and you do wrong. I have come to Scotland with my eyes
