have thought of her before this hour."

Indeed when they came near the cottage they saw Maggie standing at the
door watching for them. She went in and closed it as soon as she perceived
that all was well, and when the laggards would have explained their delay,
she was too cross to listen to them.

"It's maist the Sabbath day," she said, hiding her fretfulness behind
conscientious scruples, as all of us are ready to do. "I hope it wasna
your ain thouchts and words you were sae ta'en up wi'; but I'm feared it
was. You wadna hae staid sae lang, wi' better anes."

She would not look at Allan, and it pained him to see upon her face the
traces of anxiety and disappointment.

Far through the night he sat at his open window, gazing out upon the sea,
which was breaking almost below it. The unshed tears in Maggie's eyes, and
her evident trouble at his absence, had given him a heart pain that he
could not misunderstand. He knew that night that he loved the woman. Not
with that low, earthy affection, which is satisfied with youth, or beauty
of form or color. His soul clave unto her soul. He longed to kiss her
heavy eyes and troubled mouth, not because they were lovely, but because
his heart ached to soothe the sorrow he had given her, and longed to
comfort her with happy hopes for the future.

But he had seen enough of these honest-hearted fisher-women, to know that
the smallest act of tenderness was regarded by them as a promise. Of that
frivolous abuse of the sweetest things which is called flirtation, Maggie
had not the faintest conception. If it could have been explained to her,
she would have recoiled from it with shame and indignation.