“But,” he rejoined, with an attempt at a smile, “if the pleasure the one man took in it should, as is easy to imagine, exceed immeasurably the aggergate pleasure of the thousands that would look upon it and pass it by—what then?”
“The man would enjoy it the more that many saw it—except he loved it for greed, when he would be rejoicing in iniquity, for the cup would not be his. And anyhow, he could not take it with him when he died!”
The face of the miser grew grayer; his lip trembled; but he said nothing. He was beginning to hate Dawtie. She was an enemy! She sought his discomfiture, his misery! He had read strange things in certain old books, and half believed some of them: what if Dawtie was one of those evil powers that haunt a man in pleasant shape, learn the secrets of his heart, and gain influence over him that they may tempt him to yield his soul to the enemy! She was set on ruining him! Certainly she knew that cup was in his possession! He must temporize! He must seem to listen! But as soon as fit reason could be found, such as would neither compromise him nor offend her, she must be sent away! And of all things, she must not gain the means of proving what she now perhaps only suspected, and was seeking assurance of! He stood thinking. It was but for a moment; for the very next words from the lips of the girl that was to him little more than a house-broom, set him face to face with reality—the one terror of the unreal.
“Eh, maister, sir,” said Dawtie, with the tears in her eyes, and now at last breaking down in her English, “dinna ye ken 'at ye hae to gie the man 'at aucht that gowden bicker, the chance o' buyin' 't back?”
The laird shivered. He dared not say: “How do you know?” for he dared not hear the thing proved to him. If she did know, he would not front her proof! He would not have her even suppose it an acknowledged fact!
“If I had the cup,” he began—but she interrupted him: it was time they should have done with lying!
“Ye ken ye hae the cup, sir!” she said. “And I ken tu, for I saw 't i' yer han's!”
“You shameless, prying hussy!” he began, in a rage at last—but the eager, tearful earnestness of her face made him bethink himself: it would not do to make an enemy of her! “Tell me, Dawtie,” he said, with sudden change of tone, “how it was you came to see it.”
She told him all—how and when; and he knew that he had seen her see him.
He managed to give a poor little laugh.