He would not let this depress him.  “I ken now,” he said.  Nevertheless, why he should have got it was a mystery which he longed to fathom.  Mr. Ogilvy had returned to Glenquharity, so that an explanation could not be drawn from him even if he were willing to supply it, which was improbable; but Tommy caught Grizel in the Banker’s Close and compelled her to speak.

“I won’t tell you a word of what Mr. Ogilvy said,” she insisted, in her obstinate way, and, oh, how she despised Corp for breaking his promise.

“Corp didna ken he telled me,” said Tommy, less to clear Corp than to exalt himself, “I wriggled it out o’ him;” but even this did not bring Grizel to a proper frame of mind, so he said, to annoy her,

“At any rate you’re fond o’ me.”

“I am not,” she replied, stamping; “I think you are horrid.”

“What else made you send Corp to me?”

“I did that because I heard you were calling yourself a blockhead.”

“Oho,” said he, “so you have been speiring about me though you winna speak to me!”

Grizel looked alarmed, and thinking to weaken his case, said, hastily, “I very nearly kept it from you, I said often to myself ’I won’t tell him.’”

“So you have been thinking a lot about me!” was his prompt comment.

“If I have,” she retorted, “I did not think nice things.  And what is more, I was angry with myself for telling Corp to tell you.”

Surely this was crushing, but apparently Tommy did not think so, for he said, “You did it against your will!  That means I hare a power over you that you canna resist.  Oho, oho!”

Had she become more friendly so should he, had she shed one tear he would have melted immediately; but she only looked him up and down disdainfully, and it hardened him.  He said with a leer, “I ken what makes you hold your hands so tight, it’s to keep your arms frae wagging;” and then her cry, “How do you know?” convicted her.  He had not succeeded in his mission, but on his way home he muttered, triumphantly, “I did her, I did her!” and once he stopped to ask himself the question, “Was it because my heart was in it?” It was their last meeting till they were man and woman.

* * * * *

A blazing sun had come out on top of heavy showers, and the land reeked and smelled as of the wash-tub.  The smaller girls of Monypenny were sitting in passages playing at fivey, just as Sappho for instance used to play it; but they heard the Dubb of Prosen cart draw up at Aaron Latta’s door, and they followed it to see the last of Tommy Sandys.  Corp was already there, calling in at the door every time he heard a sob; “Dinna, Elspeth, dinna, he’ll find a wy,” but Grizel had refused to come, though Tommy knew that she had been asking when he started and which road the cart would take.  Well, he was not giving her a thought at any rate; his box was in the cart now, and his face was streaked with