"This is what ye hev dune, and ye let a woman see yir wark. Ye are an auld man, and in sore travail, but a' tell ye before God ye hae the greater shame. Juist twenty years o' age this spring, and her mither dead. Nae woman to watch over her, and she wandered frae the fold, and a' ye can dae is to tak her oot o' yir Bible. Waes me if oor Father had blotted out oor names frae the Book o' Life when we left His hoose. But He sent His ain Son to seek us, an' a weary road He cam. A' tell ye, a man wudna leave a sheep tae perish as ye hae cast aff yir ain bairn. Yir worse than Simon the Pharisee, for Mary was nae kin tae him. Puir Flora, tae hae sic a father."
"Who will be telling you that I wass a Pharisee?" cried Lachlan, quivering in every limb, and grasping Marget's arm.
"Forgie me, Lachlan, forgie me. It was the thocht o' the misguided lassie carried me, for a' didna come tae upbraid ye."
But Lachlan had sunk into a chair and had forgotten her.
"She hass the word, and God will hef smitten the pride of my heart, for it iss Simon that I am. I wass hard on my child, and I wass hard on the minister, and there wass none like me. The Lord has laid my name in the dust, and I will be angry with her. But she iss the scapegoat for my sins, and hass gone into the desert. God be merciful to me a sinner." And then Marget understood no more, for the rest was in Gaelic, but she heard Flora's name with another she took to be her mother's twined together.
So Marget knew it would be well with Lachlan yet, and she wrote this letter:
"MY DEAR LASSIE,—Ye ken that I wes aye yir freend, and I am writing this tae say that yir father luves ye mair than ever, and is wearing oot his hert for the sicht o' yir face. Come back, or he'll dee thro' want o' his bairn. The glen is bright and bonny noo, for the purple heather is on the hills, and doon below the gowden corn, wi' bluebell and poppy flowers between. Naebody 'ill ask ye where ye've been, or onything else; there's no a bairn in the place that's no wearying tae see ye; and, Flora, lassie, if there will be sic gledness in oor wee glen when ye come hame, what think ye o' the joy in the Father's Hoose? Start the verra meenute that ye get this letter; yir father bids ye come, and I'm writing this in place o' yir mother.
MARGET HOWE."
Marget went out to tend the flowers while Lachlan read the letter, and when he gave it back the address was written in his own hand.
He went as far as the crest of the hill with Marget, and watched her on the way to the post office till she was only a speck upon the road.