Violet Jacob > Flemington

THE WINTER
261
acquaintance. She had not made the advances;
his own zeal had brought about their situation.
He felt like a fool, but he saw that in speaking
he might look like one, which some consider
worse.
He left her, assuring himself that all was fair
in love and politics ; that he could not, in common
good breeding, withhold his help from her in her
legal difficulty; that, should wind of Archie’s
dealings with him get abroad in the town, he
would be saving appearances in avoiding a
rupture with the lady whose shadow he had been
since he arrived in Edinburgh, and that it was
his duty as a well-wisher of Prince Charles to
keep open any channel that might yield informa¬
tion about Flemington’s movements. Whatsoever
may have been the quality of his reasons, their
quantity was remarkable. He did not like the
little voice that whispered to him that he would
not have dared to offer them to James.
There weft no further risk of a meeting with
Archie, for within a few days of the latter’s
appearance in Hyndford’s Close he had been sent
to the Border with instructions to watch Jedburgh
and the neighbourhood of Liddesdale, through
which the Prince’s army had passed on its march
to England. Madam Flemington knew that the
coast was clear, and David had no suspicion that
it had been otherwise. Very few people in
Edinburgh were aware of Flemington’s visit to
it; it was an event of which even the caddies
were ignorant.