"No, no; 'deed!, no!"
"I knew you wouldn't. When my father taunted me with that, saying you would give me up as soon as you knew my allowance was gone, I said, 'Not Bessie! I'll trust her for that, Sir.'"
Bessie began to cry. Alick was bewildered.
"What is it, then? Tell me! Are you .... are you thinking of Stowell?"
At that name she was seized by the mad impulse which comes to people on dizzy heights when they wish to throw themselves over—she wanted to blurt out the truth, to confess everything. But before she could speak Alick was saying,
"I shouldn't blame you if you were. I'm not his equal—I know that, Bessie. But even if he were free I shouldn't give you up to him now. No, by God, not to him or to anyone."
His voice was breaking. She looked at him. There were tears in his eyes. She could bear up no longer. With the cry of a drowning soul she flung her arms about him and sobbed on his breast.
An hour later, having comforted and quietened her, Gell was going off with swinging strides through the mist to catch the last train back to Douglas.
"She was thinking of me—that was it," he was telling himself. "Thought I would come to regret the sacrifice and wanted to save me from being cut off by my family. So unselfish! Never thinking of herself, bless her!"
And Bessie, in her bedroom was saying to herself, "He's that fond of me that he'll forgive me, whatever happens."