“Because if they do,——You remember what you said to me as we passed the saw-mill in the wood?”
It was by silence Malcolm showed he did remember.
“Does not this night remind you of that one at Wastbeach when we came upon you singing?” said Clementina.
“It is like it, my lady—now. But a little ago, before I saw you, I was thinking of that night, and thinking how different this was.”
Again a moon-filled silence fell; and once more it was the lady who broke it.
“Do you know who are at the house?” she asked.
“I do, my lady,” he replied.
“I had not been there more than an hour or two,” she went on, “when they arrived. I suppose Florimel—Lady Lossie—thought I would not come if she told me she expected them.”
“And would you have come, my lady?”
“I cannot endure the earl.”