"Ah, Dandy!" said Nancy, her voice having a ring of pleasure in it. "When did you return from Glasgow?"
"Late yesterday," he answered. "I dined at the club in town and rode home about ten. I'm thinking of leaving Arran for a time," he said, coldly.
"Why didn't you stop?" she asked, with some surprise.
"I was in no mood for visiting last night."
"You were ill, or worried?" Nancy inquired anxiously.
"Worried, ill," he answered. "Ill, and ashamed, and miserable, in a way, please God, most men may never know."
"What is it, Dandy?" and I saw that at his vehemence she put her work on the table and moved toward him.
"Oh!" he cried out, "it's you! It's you! In the month before I went away I had to endure God only knows what bitterness because of you! And on my return last night I hear at the club that ye've been off in Ayrshire visiting Robert Burns! Did ye have a pleasant time?" he asked, glowering down at her from his great height, handsome and angrier than I had ever seen him before.
The tone rather than the words struck fire immediately, and Nancy's eyes took a peculiar significance, boding little good to the one with whom she was having dealings.
"Very pleasant," she answered, in a voice of ice, picking up her work and reseating herself.
"Before I went away," Danvers continued, "there was little in the way of humiliation which I had not endured at your hands! I've seen ye play fast and loose with half the men in Edinbro'--aye, in the whole of Scotland, it seems to me! I have heard your name coupled more often than I can tell with that of the greatest scoundrel in Scotland, and have held silence concerning it; and when things came to that pass that none could endure it and I struck him; how was the affair settled. By your sending for him!--for him!" he fairly screamed, "while I, your betrothed husband almost, was left in ignorance that ye knew of the matter at all.
"And at the time of the meeting in the Holm, what does the damned scoundrel do but come forth with his friends and apologize for his conduct with seeming generosity, naming the whole business the result of a crusty temper of his own, apologizing handsomely, and in a devilish open way, ending by saying:
"'One who is dear to me has shown me my faults, and I am doing her bidding, as well as fulfilling my own sense of justice, in asking your pardon!' And at the mention of you he took off his hat and spoke as one who performs an obligation to another who has a right to demand it.