She felt a kind of turn--I do not know another word to express what I mean: the boy must have fits, and either could not tell, or was ashamed to tell, what had befallen him.

Thereafter she too was silent, and Robert thought she was offended.

Possibly he felt a change in the touch of her fingers.
'Mem, I wad like to tell ye,' he said, 'but I daurna.' 'Oh! never mind,' she returned kindly.
'Wad ye promise nae to tell naebody ?' 'I don't want to know,' she answered, confirmed in her suspicion, and at the same time ashamed of the alteration of feeling which the discovery had occasioned.
An uncomfortable silence followed, broken by Robert.
'Gin ye binna pleased wi' me, mem,' he said, 'I canna bide ye to gang on wi' siccan a job 's that.' How Miss St.John could have understood him, I cannot think; but she did.
'Oh! very well,' she answered, smiling.

'Just as you please.

Perhaps you had better take this piece of plaster to Betty, and ask her to finish the dressing for you.' Robert took the plaster mechanically, and, sick at heart and speechless, rose to go, forgetting even his bonny leddy in his grief.
'You had better take your violin with you,' said Miss St.John, urged to the cruel experiment by a strong desire to see what the strange boy would do.
He turned.