Advena, had she heard it, would have repelled Dr Drummond's warning with indignation.

If it were so possible to keep their friendship on an unfaltering level then, with the latitude they had, what danger could attend them later, when the social law would support them, divide them, protect them?
Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked grimly on, and from November to March found no need to invite Mr Finlay to occupy the pulpit of Knox Church.
They had come to full knowledge that night of their long walk in the dark together; but even then, in the rush and shock and glory of it, they had held apart; and their broken avowals had crossed with difficulty from one to the other.

The whole fabric of circumstance was between them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we know, had not reduced it.

They gave it great credit as a barrier; I suppose because it kept them out of each other's arms.

It had done that.
It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should continue upon terms of happy debt to one another, the balance always changing, the account never closed and rendered.