humbly. "If it annoys you, I will take it down. My mother gave it to
me--I cannot put it away altogether."

"You shall not part with it," said the Whaup. "Let me see the man or
woman who will touch that crucifix, though it had on it the woman o'
Babylon herself!"

But the Whaup himself was troubled by the acquaintance of Coquette with
Lord Earlshope, which, from a casual meeting, developed with startling
rapidity.

His lordship's reputation in the parish was far from good. He never
attended the kirk; was seen walking about with his dogs and smoking on
the Sabbath; and even, it was said, read novels on that holy day. His
appearance in church on the first Sunday after Coquette's arrival in
Airlie was not difficult to explain, and it was followed by interchanges
of visits between the Manse and Earlshope House.

Soon the young lord and Coquette began to meet when she was taking her
early walk, a form of "carrying on" which outraged the sentiments of the
parish, and caused the Whaup to announce his intention of "giving her
up" and going to sea.

The alienation of the Whaup made Coquette very miserable, and when her
uncle discovered her walking alone with Lord Earlshope, she tearfully
requested to be allowed to go back to France.

"I am suspected," she sobbed, in her foreign English; "I do hear they
talk of me as dangerous. Is it wrong for me to speak to Lord Earlshope
when I do see him kind to me? Since I left France I did meet no one so