“She always had those wonderful dark eyes.  She’s pale enough now, but as a child she was rosy.  Taking her place of a winter evening, with the snow on her fur cap and her hair, I often thought her a picture.  I liked to have her attention while I was preaching, even as a child; and when she was absent I missed her.  It was through my ministrations that she saw her way to professing the Church of Christ, and under my heartfelt benediction that she first broke bread in her Father’s house.  I hold the girl in great affection, Finlay; and I grieve to hear this.”

The other drew a long breath, and his hand tightened on the arm of his chair.  He was, as we know, blind to many of the world’s aspects, even to those in which he himself figured; and Dr Drummond’s plain hypothesis of his relations with Advena came before him in forced illumination, flash by tragic flash.  This kind of revelation is more discomforting than darkness, since it carries the surprise of assault, and Finlay groped in it, helpless and silent.

“You are grieved, sir?” he said mechanically.

“Man, she loves you!” exclaimed the Doctor, in a tone that would no longer forbear.

Hugh Finlay seemed to take the words just where they were levelled, in his breast.  He half leaped from his chair; the lower part of his face had the rigidity of iron.

“I am not obliged to discuss such a matter as that,” he said hoarsely, “with you or with any man.”

He looked confusedly about him for his hat, which he had left in the hall; and Dr Drummond profited by the instant.  He stepped across and laid a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.  Had they both been standing the gesture would have been impossible to Dr Drummond with dignity; as it was, it had not only that, but benignance, a kind of tender good will, rare in expression with the minister, rare, for that matter, in feeling with him too, though the chord was always there to be sounded.

“Finlay,” he said; “Finlay!”

Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone together made an extraordinary demonstration.  Finlay, with an obvious effort, let it lie upon him.  The tension of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, leaning forward and burying his head in his hands.

“Will you say I have no claim to speak?” asked Dr Drummond, and met silence.  “It is upon my lips to beg you not to send that letter, Finlay.”  He took his hand from the young man’s shoulder, inserted a thumb in each of his waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk.

“On my own account I must send it,” said Finlay.  “On Miss Murchison’s—­she bids me to.  We have gone into the matter together.”

“I can imagine what you made of it together.  There’s a good deal of her father in Advena.  He would be the last man to say a word for himself.  You told her this tale you have told me, and she told you to get Miss Christie out and marry her without delay, eh?  And what would you expect her to tell you—­a girl of that spirit?”