So much for that--it was in Maisie's own interest.

And why, after keeping silence to everybody, did I decide to break it to Sir Gilbert Carstairs?
There, Andrew Dunlop came in--of course, unawares to himself.

For in those lecturings that he was so fond of giving us young folk, there was a moral precept of his kept cropping up which he seemed to set great store by--"If you've anything against a man, or reason to mistrust him," he would say, "don't keep it to yourself, or hint it to other people behind his back, but go straight to him and tell him to his face, and have it out with him." He was a wise man, Andrew Dunlop, as all his acquaintance knew, and I felt that I could do no better than take a lesson from him in this matter.

So I would go straight to Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and tell him what was in my mind--let the consequences be what they might.
It was well after sunset, and the gloaming was over the hills and the river, when I turned into the grounds of Hathercleugh and looked round me at a place which, though I had lived close to it ever since I was born, I had never set foot in before.

The house stood on a plateau of ground high above Tweed, with a deep shawl of wood behind it and a fringe of plantations on either side; house and pleasure-grounds were enclosed by a high ivied wall on all sides--you could see little of either until you were within the gates.