They were not far away, but too taken up with each other to see me.  She was walking slowly, with the little petulant cock of her dainty head which I knew so well, casting her eyes away from him, and shooting out a word from time to time.  He paced along beside her, looking down at her and bending his head in the eagerness of his talk.  Then as he said something, she placed her hand with a caress upon his arm, and he, carried off his feet, plucked her up and kissed her again and again.  At the sight I could neither cry out nor move, but stood, with a heart of lead and the face of a dead man, staring down at them.  I saw her hand passed over his shoulder, and that his kisses were as welcome to her as ever mine had been.

Then he set her down again, and I found that this had been their parting; for, indeed, in another hundred paces they would have come in view of the upper windows of the house.  She walked slowly away, with a wave back once or twice, and he stood looking after her.  I waited until she was some way off, and then down I came, but so taken up was he, that I was within a hand’s-touch of him before he whisked round upon me.  He tried to smile as is eye met mine.

“Ah, Jock,” says he, “early afoot!”

“I saw you!” I gasped; and my throat had turned so dry that I spoke like a man with a quinsy.

“Did you so?” said he, and gave a little whistle.  “Well, on my life, Jock, I’m not sorry.  I was thinking of coming up to West Inch this very day, and having it out with you.  Maybe it’s better as it is.”

“You’ve been a fine friend!” said I.

“Well now, be reasonable, Jock,” said he, sticking his hands into his pockets and rocking to and fro as he stood.  “Let me show you how it stands.  Look me in the eye, and you’ll see that I don’t lie.  It’s this Way.  I had met Edi—­Miss Calder that is—­before I came that morning, and there were things which made me look upon her as free; and, thinking that, I let my mind dwell on her.  Then you said she wasn’t free, but was promised to you, and that was the worst knock I’ve had for a time.  It clean put me off, and I made a fool of myself for some days, and it’s a mercy I’m not in Berwick gaol.  Then by chance I met her again—­on my soul, Jock, it was chance for me—­and when I spoke of you she laughed at the thought.  It was cousin and cousin, she said; but as for her not being free, or you being more to her than a friend, it was fool’s talk.  So you see, Jock, I was not so much to blame, after all:  the more so as she promised that she would let you see by her conduct that you were mistaken in thinking that you had any claim upon her.  You must have noticed that she has hardly had a word for you for these last two weeks.”

I laughed bitterly.

“It was only last night,” said I, “that she told me that I was the only man in all this earth that she could ever bring herself to love.”

Jim Horscroft put out a shaking hand and laid it on my shoulder, while he pushed his face forward to look into my eyes.