"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.
"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."
"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You have promised to marry her."
"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I would like to know?"
"I think you will find out."
In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear he had come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast, he strolled out to make his own investigations.
There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness that it angered him.
"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business here."
"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."
"They are married, then?"