The first day of the holidays had also been a delight to Mr. Andrew Halliday’s virtuous soul. More systematic in all he did than Joyce’s irregular impulses permitted her to be, he had taken advantage of the leisure of the morning to enjoy to the utmost the quietness and freedom of a man who has no rule but his own pleasure for the government of his time. He got up a little later than usual, lingered over his breakfast, exhausted the newspaper over which, on ordinary occasions, he could cast only a hurried glance, and tasted the sweetness of that pause of occupation as no habitually unoccupied man could ever do. Then he sallied forth, not, as Joyce did, to dream and muse, but to enjoy the conscious pleasure of a walk, during which, indeed, he turned over many things in his mind which were not unallied to happy dreams. For Andrew had come to a determination which filled him at once with sweet and tender fancies, and with the careful calculations of a prudent man in face of a great change in life. He had made up his mind to insist upon a decision from Joyce, to have the time of their marriage settled. Of this she had never permitted him to speak. Their engagement had been altogether of a highly refined and visionary kind, a sort of bond of intellectual sympathy which pleased and flattered the consciousness of superiority in Halliday’s mind, but in other respects was sometimes a little chilly, and so wanting in all warmer demonstration as to carry with it a perpetual subdued disappointment and tremor of uncertainty. Had not the schoolmaster possessed a great deal of self-approval and conscious worth, he might have sometimes lost confidence altogether in Joyce’s affection; but though he was often uncomfortable with a sensation of having much kept from him which was his due, he had not as yet come so far as to be able to imagine that Joyce was indifferent to him. He could not have done her that wrong. She had met nobody, could have met nobody,
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 who was his equal, and how was it possible then that she could be unfaithful? It seemed to Halliday a wrong to Joyce to suppose her capable of such a lamentable want of judgment.
But he was heartily in love with her at the same time, as well as so much with himself, and the régime under which she held him was cold. He had become impatient of it, and very anxious to bring it to an end: and there was no reason, except her fantastic unreadiness, for delay. He said to himself that he must put a stop to it,—that he must step forward in all the decision of his manhood, and impress this determination upon the weaker feminine nature which was made to yield to his superior force and impulse. There was no reason in the world for delay. He had attained all the promotion which was likely for a long time to be his; and the position of schoolmistress in his parish was likely to be soon vacant, which would afford to Joyce the possibility of carrying on her professional work, and adding to their joint means, as no doubt she would insist upon doing. This was not a thing which Halliday himself would have insisted upon. He felt profoundly that to be able to keep his wife at home, and retain her altogether like a garden enclosed for his private enjoyment, was a supreme luxury, and one which it was the privilege of the superior classes alone to prize at its proper value. He had been a prudent young man all his life, and had laid by a little money, and he felt with a proud and not ungenerous expansion of his bosom that he was able to afford himself that luxury; but he doubted greatly whether it would be possible to bring Joyce to perceive that this was the more excellent way, and that it would be meet for her to give up her work and devote herself entirely to her husband. He comprehended something of her pride, her high independence, and even indulgently allowed for the presence in her of a great deal of that ambition which is more appropriate to a man than a woman; therefore he was prepared to yield the question in respect to the work, and to find a new element of satisfaction in the thought of placing her by his own side in the little rostrum of the school as well as in the seclusion of the home. The Board would be too glad to secure the services of Miss Matheson, so well known for her admirable management at Bellendean, as the mistress at Comely Green. And thus every exigency would be satisfied.
He went over his little house carefully, room by room, when he came in from his walk, and considered what it would be necessary to add, and what to repair and refresh, for Joyce’s reception. His mind was a thoroughly frugal and prudent one, tempted by no vain desires, spoiled by no habits of extravagance.
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 Amid all the fond visions which filled him, as he realised the new necessities of a double life, he yet calculated very closely what would be necessary, what they could do without, how many things were strictly needful, and how and at what price these additions could be procured. The calculations were full of enchantment, but they were not reckoned up less carefully. He returned to them after he had eaten his dinner, and they occupied the greater part of the afternoon, with many an excursion into the realms of fancy to sweeten them, although of themselves they were sweet. And it was with the result of his calculations carefully jotted down upon a piece of paper in his pocket-book, that he set out before tea-time for Bellendean, to make known to Joyce his desires and determination, and to sway her mind as the female mind ought to be swayed, half by sweet persuasion, half by the magnetism of his superior force of impulse, to adopt it as her own. The idea that she might insist, and decline to be influenced, was one which he would not allow himself to take into consideration, though it lay in the background in one of the chambers of his mind with a sort of chill sense of unpleasant possibility, which, so far as possible, he put out of sight.
It was a lovely afternoon, and the road from Comely Green to Bellendean lay partly by the highroad within sight of the Firth, and partly through the woods and park of Bellendean House. Everything was cheerful round him, the birds singing, the water reflecting the sunshine in jewelled lines of sparkle and light. Andrew could not think of any such black thing as refusal, or even reluctance, amid all the sweet harmony and consent to be happy, which was in the lovely summer day.
When he reached the cottage it gave him a little thrill of surprise to find the door shut which usually stood so frankly open, admitting the genial summer atmosphere and something of the sights and sounds outside. It was strange to find the door closed on a summer evening; and an idea that somebody must be ill, or that something must have happened, sprang into instant life in Andrew’s mind. His knock was not even answered by the invitation to come in, which would have been natural in other circumstances. He heard a little movement inside, but no cheerful sound of voices, and presently the door was opened by Janet, who, looking out upon him with a jealous glance through a very small opening, breathed forth an ‘Oh! it’s you, Andrew;’ and, letting the door swing fully open, bade him come in. Within he was bewildered to see old Peter and Joyce seated at the table, upon which the tea-things still stood. There they were all three,
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 nobody ill, no visible cause for this extraordinary seclusion. Peter gave him a grim little nod without speaking, and Joyce put forth—it almost seemed unwillingly—her hand, but without moving otherwise. He took the chair from which Janet had risen, and gazed at them bewildered. ‘What is the matter? Has anything happened?’ he said.
There was a pause. Peter drummed upon the table with his fingers, with something almost derisive in the measured sound; and Joyce half turned to him as if about to speak, but said nothing. It was Janet who answered his question. There was a hot flush upon her cheeks—the flush of excitement and emotion. She answered him shaking her head.
‘Ay, Andrew, there’s something happened. We’re no’ like oursel’s, as ye can see. Ye wouldna have gotten in this nicht to this afflicted house if ye had not been airt and pairt in it as weel as Peter and me.’
‘What is the matter?’ he repeated, with increased alarm.
‘Ye better tell him, Joyce. Puir lad, he has a richt to hear. He’s maybe thought like me of sic a thing happening, without fear, as if it might be a kind of diversion. The Lord help us short-sighted folk.’
‘What is it?’ he said; ‘you are driving me distracted. What has happened?’
Upon this Peter gave a short, dry laugh, which it was alarming to hear. ‘He’ll never find out,’ said the old man, ‘if ye give him years to do it. It’s against reason—it’s against sense—a man to step in and take another man’s bairn away.’
Joyce was very pale. He observed this for the first time in the confusion and the trouble of this incomprehensible scene. She sat with her hands clasped, looking at no one—not even at himself, though she had given him her hand. It was rare, indeed, that Joyce should be the last to explain. Halliday drew his chair a little nearer, and put his hand timidly upon hers, which made her start. She made a quick movement, as if to draw it away, then visibly controlled herself and permitted that mute interrogation and caress.
‘It is just what I aye kent would happen,’ said Janet, unconscious or indifferent to her self-contradictions; ‘and many a time have I implored my man no’ to build upon her, though I wasna so wise as to tak’ my ain advice. And as for you, Andrew, though I took good care you should hear a’ the circumstances, maybe I should have warned you mair clearly that you ............