I'll not say ill of him that is--dead--ay, dead and drowned--whativer Kester may say--before now; but if I chose I could tell tales.' 'No! tell no tales; I'll not hear them,' said she, wrenching herself out of Philip's clasping arm.

'They may misca' him for iver, and I'll not believe 'em.' 'I'll niver miscall one who is dead,' said Philip; each new unconscious sign of the strength of Sylvia's love for her former lover only making him the more anxious to convince her that he was dead, only rendering him more keen at deceiving his own conscience by repeating to it the lie that long ere this Kinraid was in all probability dead--killed by either the chances of war or tempestuous sea; that, even if not, he was as good as dead to her; so that the word 'dead' might be used in all honest certainty, as in one of its meanings Kinraid was dead for sure.
'Think yo' that if he were not dead he wouldn't ha' written ere this to some one of his kin, if not to thee?
Yet none of his folk Newcassel-way but believe him dead.' 'So Kester says,' sighed Sylvia.
Philip took heart.

He put his arm softly round her again, and murmured-- 'My lassie, try not to think on them as is gone, as is dead, but t' think a bit more on him as loves yo' wi' heart, and soul, and might, and has done iver sin' he first set eyes on yo'.

Oh, Sylvie, my love for thee is just terrible.' At this moment Dolly Reid was seen at the back-door of the farmhouse, and catching sight of Sylvia, she called out-- 'Sylvia, thy mother is axing for thee, and I cannot make her mind easy.' In a moment Sylvia had sprung up from her seat, and was running in to soothe and comfort her mother's troubled fancies.
Philip sate on by the well-side, his face buried in his two hands.
Presently he lifted himself up, drank some water eagerly out of his hollowed palm, sighed, and shook himself, and followed his cousin into the house.

Sometimes he came unexpectedly to the limits of his influence over her.