"Tak' your hand off my shuther," Aaron cried fiercely.
Tommy removed his hand, but he continued to look yearningly at the warper. Another beautiful thought came to him.
"What are you looking so holy about?" asked Aaron, with misgivings.
"Aaron," cried Tommy, suddenly inspired, "you are not always the gloomy man you pass for being. You have glorious moments still. You wake in the morning, and for a second of time you are in the heyday of your youth, and you and Jean Myles are to walk out to-night. As you sit by this fire you think you hear her hand on the latch of the door; as you pass down the street you seem to see her coming towards you. It is for a moment only, and then you are a gray-haired man again, and she has been in her grave for many a year; but you have that moment."
Aaron rose, amazed and wrathful. "The de'il tak' you," he cried, "how did you find out that?"
Perhaps Tommy's nose turned up rapturously in reply, for the best of us cannot command ourselves altogether at great moments, but when he spoke he was modest again.
"It was sympathy that told me," he explained; "and, Aaron, if you will only believe me, it tells me also that a little of the man you were still clings to you. Come out of the moroseness in which you have enveloped yourself so long. Think what a joy it would be to Elspeth."
"It's little she would care."
"If you want to hurt her, tell her so."
"I'm no denying but what she's fell fond o' me."