"When are yon two gaun to be marriet?" she asked firmly. She was a just woman, and having seen no signs of wrong-doing was willing to believe the best.
"I'm thinkin'," he replied slowly, "that they are no considering marriage."
"Then they aught tae think shame tae themsels," retorted the landlandy severely. "Her week's up the morrow's morn, an' I'll just tell her she canna stop in my house. It's just clean redeeklus."
"There's no need for you to say aught, ma'am," he protested eagerly. "She's leavin', anyhow. Ye ken she only came for her health and that's re-established. It would only hurt the lassie--and--and do harm, mayhap."
"The lassie, as you ca' her--will take no hairm from what I sall say to her, an' she'd be the better to give up moithering about wi' majors, and tak' up wi' a gude, God-fearin' man like yersel'."
And with that she carried the click of her knitting-pins back into the inn, leaving Andrew Fraser battling with his own heart. Aye, surely, surely, it would be better, more seemly, more discreet.
But there they were coming up from the beach like happy children.
"Then I'll bring a boat along at one to-morrow," said the major, as he climbed into the tilbury. "I can't get away before, and we'll try and get to the Craig. It's eighteen miles south, so if this north-west wind holds good we shall have plenty of time, shan't we?"
"Plenty of time!" echoed Marrion happily.
But she had been happy every day of those six weeks, and even now, though the hair money was running short, and she knew she must be up and doing in a few days, she would not, could not, think of the future. Sufficient to the day was the evil and the good thereof.
Half an hour after Marmaduke's departure, however, she came out of the inn-parlour with a heightened colour. It had been no use attempting to explain the position to the landlady, it was foolish to mind what she had said; the more so as, automatically, that position must end in a day or two; still it was disturbing!
In this early September the twilights were long and the sky was still golden high up to the zenith. She threw a shawl over her head and, taking a boat, sculled herself across the ferry for a calming walk down the coast-line.
The song kept echoing in her head. How pinchbeck it all was, that love of which men sung--