When Anne entered Merkland after her visit to the nurse's cottage, and
was proceeding, as usual to her own room, she was stopped by Duncan.
"Miss Anne," said Duncan, significantly, "Merkland is in the parlor."
"Well, Duncan," said Anne, "what of that? Does Lewis want me?"
"Na, I'm no saying that," said the cautious Duncan; "but I just thought
within mysel that maybe ye were wanting to see the Laird; and he's in
the parlor, and so's the mistress. Mr. Lewis has been hame this
half-hour."
Anne comprehended. The clouds of the morning had broken into a storm,
and Duncan, with whom "Mr. Lewis," partly as a child of his own
training, and partly as the Laird of Merkland, was a person of the very
highest importance, and not to be teased and incommoded by "a wheen
woman," desired her interposition to receive the tempest upon her own
head, and avert it from Lewis, as was the general wont, when Anne made
her appearance in the midst of any quarrel between the mother and son.
"I will return immediately, Duncan," she said, as she ran up stairs to
take off her cloak and bonnet.
Duncan turned away satisfied.
"A wheen, silly, fuils o' women, as they are a', the haill sect o'
them," he soliloquized, fretfully; "wearing the very life and pith out
o'the lad, wi' their angers, and their makings o'. First the one and
then the other. Ane would need lang tack o' patience that ventured to
yoke wi' them, frae Job himsel, honest man, doun to Peter Hislop, the
stock farmer at Wentrup Head. 'Deed, and the twa are in no manner
unlike, when ane has a talent for similarities. They were baith rich in
cattle, and had a jaud of a wife to the piece o' them. Clavering,
ill-tongued randies, wearing out the lives of peaceable men."
When Anne entered the room, she found Lewis pacing back and forward in
it, in haste and anger, while Mrs. Ross sat leaning back in her chair
with the air of a besieger, who has thrown his last bomb, and waits to
see its effect.
"I cannot believe it,--I will not believe it!" exclaimed Lewis, as Anne
entered. "If it had been so, I should have heard it before. Oh! I know
you could not have kept this pleasure from me so long, mother! and I
declare to you that this stratagem--I say this unworthy stratagem--only
strengthens my determination. Anne," continued Lewis, perceiving her as
he turned, in his hasty progress from one end of the room to the other,
"you have heard this story--this phantom of Norman--the murderer, as he
is called--which my kind mother has conjured up to frighten me. Join
with me in telling her it is not true--that we are not to be
deceived--that we do not believe this!"
Mrs. Ross endeavored to toss her head as contemptuously as was her
wont--it would not do; the motion was spasmodic. She was reaping the
fruit of her own training, and the ingratitude and rude anger of her
only son, from whom, indeed, she did not deserve this, stung her to the
heart.
"Lewis," said Anne, "you are behaving very unjustly to your mother. Be
calm, and do not give way to anger so unseemly."
"Oh! do not interrupt him," said Mrs. Ross, "let him go on; it is
pleasant to insult his mother."
Lewis turned from her angrily.
"This is not a time for any absurd punctilio, Anne. Let me hear you say
this is not true--this story--this scheme. I will not submit to it. Am I
a boy, I wonder, that I am to be frightened by such a--"
Mrs. Ross rose. The darling son--the only child--to turn on his mother
thus!
"Lewis!" she said, her features twitching, her voice husky. "Beware!"
"Lewis!" said Anne; "I cannot bear this either; it is mere madness; sit
down quietly and listen. Mother, I beg of you to sit down; forgive him
this; he does not know--he cannot comprehend. Lewis, when your mother
told you this very terrible story, she believed it true."
Mrs. Ross had been regarding Anne, whose support she deserved as little
as she did the insults of her son, with a face in which wonder and shame
were strangely blended. Now she darted up a sharp, keen glance.
"_Believed_ it true! This from you, Anne Ross--this from you!"
"Bear with me, mother," exclaimed Anne; "and you, Lewis, be still and
hear me. I believe with my whole heart that our brother, Norman
Rutherford, is innocent of this terrible deed; but, in the judgment of
the world, he is condemned long years ago. Every one thinks him guilty.
Not your mother only, but Mrs. Catherine, and all who know the story,
except myself and one other. Lewis, I do not say how unbecoming and
unnatural this passion is, but your mother has only told you, what I
have been eager to tell you through all these anxious months. So far as
common belief goes, you have heard rightly."
"But it is not true," said Lewis, doggedly, throwing himself into a
chair; "you admit it is not true. A scheme--a--"
"Mother, leave this to me," cried Anne, trembling as she saw the
contortion of Mrs. Ross's face. "It is no scheme, Lewis. You do us cruel
wrong in using such a word. It is true in every particular, but in the
one which has given it all its bitterness to me. It is not true that
Norman is guilty. It is true, that for seventeen years--for all Alice
Aytoun's sunny lifetime--he has been expiating, in a foreign country,
the crime of another man. Do not sneer, mother; I cannot bear it. Do not
turn away Lewis; I will not be disbelieved. My brother Norman is
innocent; the two hearts that knew him, and loved him best, have put
their seal upon his truth, one bearing witness in the clearsightedness
of nearly approaching death, the other cherishing it in her inmost heart
as the one hope of her waning years. Lewis, here is your father's latest
words and testimony. Read it, and believe that it is true."
"What is true?" exclaimed Lewis, starting up, without, however, taking
the letters which Anne held out to him. "What is the meaning of all
this, Anne? My mother tells me first, that this Norman killed the father
of Alice Aytoun, and then you come in, and tell me all the story is
true, and yet that Norman is innocent; what do you mean? I am not to be
treated as a schoolboy. I shall not submit to these mysteries; tell me
plainly what you mean."
Anne looked anxiously at Mrs. Ross. "Have you told him all? Does he know
all, mother?"
"I don't understand you, Anne," said Mrs. Ross, sullenly.
Anne stood between them, baited by both, her patience nearly breaking
down. "Does he know all?" she repeated; "does he know that Norman is
alive? Lewis, have you heard that?"
Lewis walked through the room hastily, and did not answer. He had heard
it--it was clear; and Anne fancied that, like herself, the thousand
apprehensions connected with that secret were overwhelming Lewis, that
grief and fear for their unhappy brother were swelling up in his heart,
too great for speech.
"Lewis," she continued, "you ask me what I mean--I will tell you. This
morning, and for many a sorrowful and dreary morning before this, I knew
the history of Norman, as you know it now. I knew that the stain of a
great crime was upon his name. I believed that Alice Aytoun's father had
fallen by his hand. I knew that justice had set its terrible mark upon
him, and that the world thought him already dead; yet, all the while, I
knew he was alive, still wandering, Cain-like, with his guilt and his
condemnation upon his head. Lewis! since Alice Aytoun came to the Tower,
this has haunted me night and day, waking and sleeping; it has tinged my
every thought and every dream; it has never left my mind for an hour.
You thought I wished to put obstacles between Alice Aytoun and you; you
were right, I did so. I endeavored in every possible way to keep you
separate. I schemed as I never schemed before; you know now the reason.
I wanted to preserve you both; to save her young heart from this cloud,
and to keep you even from knowing it, because it was your mother's wish
you should not know. Our plans are not the best, and Providence has
mercifully baulked mine. Lewis, with you I am sure, as with me, the one
circumstance in Norman's calamity that makes it bitter, is the crime.
What happened last night, driving me, as it did, almost to absolute
despair, drove me also to exertion. And this morning, I found these
precious letters--look at them, Lewis--which clear Norman, and which
leave to us my father's dying charge, to redeem the fame of his unjustly
accused son. Lewis, take the letters; they are addressed to you no less
than to me, and if we but discharge our trust faithfully, all will be
well."
Something moved by Anne's earnestness, Lewis took the letters, and sat
down to examine them. Anne threw herself, exhausted, into a chair; the
mental excitement of the morning, and its sudden transition from despair
to hope, had worn her out. Mrs. Ross glanced from the one to the other
angrily, and cast keen glances at the yellow tear-blotted letters in her
son's hand. He had laid down his father's cover, and was reading with
kindred keenness, Norman's incoherent self-defence. The young man's
sharp, cold scrutiny, was little like that of one, whose present
happiness depended upon the truth of this; his steady hand, and
business-like demeanor, revealed no deeper interest in that cry of
agony, than if its writer had been the merest stranger, and not a
much-suffering brother. Anne watched him also, with compressed lips, and
anxious eyes; she thought his indifference firmness, or tried to think
so, though very differently, she knew, that utterance of Norman's
distress had entered into her own heart.
He finished the letters; but there came no exclamation of hope or
thanksgiving from the steady lip of Lewis. He folded them up carefully,
and laid them on the table. Anne waited in breathless anxiety. "Well,"
he said, coldly, "and what do you think you can make of these?"
"Lewis!" exclaimed Anne.
"Ah! I thought you would be disappointed. It's not at all wonderful that
you should think these letters could do a mighty deal of themselves, for
you've no experience, you know nothing of the world; and yet, I thought
you had better sense, Anne. They're not worth a rush."
Anne looked at him in amazement; she would not understand his meaning.
"They prove nothing--nothing in this world," said Lewis, with some
impatience. "An incoherent attempt to deny a crime, which nobody could
suppose he would like to acknowledge, and simply my father's belief,
that what his son said was true, to support it; it is quite nonsense,
Anne; nothing could be founded upon such things."
"Yes; I hope you will see the folly of that romantic stuff," said Mrs.
Ross; "a man sacrificing himself entirely, rather than venture to stand
a trial! Depend upon it, Anne Ross, your brother Norman had his senses
better about him than you; he fled, because he knew that his only chance
of escape was in flight, you may take my word for that. And now that you
are satisfied, Lewis; now that you have received the testimony of some
one you can credit, that your mother has not told you a lie; you will
not hesitate, I trust, to take the only honorable step that remains for
you, and immediately give up your very foolish engagement with this
girl."
Lewis looked up indignantly.
"I am old enough certainly to manage that for myself. I shall make my
own decision."
Mrs. Ross rose, lowering in sullen anger, and left the room; and Anne,
pale and excited, rose to claim her letters. The youth's heart was moved
within Lewis Ross at last, in spite of all his premature prudence, and
worldly wisdom; he met his sister's inquisitive, searching look, with
his own face more subdued and milder.
"Well, Anne?"
Anne lifted the letters.
"Is it possible, Lewis--is it possible, that you can have read these,
and remain unconvinced? Has my father's charge no weight with you? Has
Norman's distress no power? I cannot believe it--you feel as I do,
Lewis, that Norman is not guilty."
"I don't know, Anne--I can't see it," said Lewis, leaning his head on
his hand. "Here is every chance against him--every circumstance, and
nothing in his favor but these two incoherent rambling letters. He was
an excitable nervous person himself, and my father was an old man,
almost in his dotage. I have my mother's authority for saying so--and
what is their mere assertion against all the evidence?"
"What evidence, Lewis?"
"Oh, I have seen it all!" said Lewis, waving his hand: "my mother had
the papers ready for me when I came in; she has hoarded them up, I
fancy, to let me have the pleasure. If you had not said it, Anne, I
should never have believed that the Norman Rutherford she told me of was
any brother of ours; but since he is--the evidence it seems to me is
irresistible. No, I can't say these letters convince me. It may be all
very well to maintain a friend's innocence to the world, but between
ourselves, you know, I see nothing in them."
Anne turned from him impatiently.
"Well!" exclaimed Lewis, "upon my word you bait and badger a man till he
does not know his own mind. What would you have me do, Anne? Shall I go
away and labor to find this Norman, and beg him to take Merkland off my
hands, and permit me to remain his very humble servant? What do you
mean? what would you have me do?"
"I would have you do the duty of a son and a brother," said Anne; "and
if you will not do it, I warn you, Lewis, that I take this work upon
myself, however unsuitable it may be for a woman. You have a special
stake in it, Lewis--you must see that, till this mystery is cleared,
Alice Aytoun is unapproachable to you; the brother of her father's
accused murderer can be nothing to her, but a stranger whom she must
shrink from and avoid. I know how this will crush poor Alice, but she is
far too gentle and good a girl to go to any passionate extreme. You
would speak of prejudice, and revenge, and arbitrary custom, Lewis: it
is nonsense to say that; but were it only custom and prejudice, Alice
will be ruled by it. She will not see you again."
"Will she not?" exclaimed Lewis, triumphantly, "we shall soon see. I
don't mean to do anything tragical or high-flown, Anne, there's an end
of it. Thanks to the difference of name, Alice knows nothing of this,
and I do not see the remotest occasion for her ever knowing. I shan't
tell her certainly. I intend to write to her mother to-day--you need not
look horrified--this shall not keep me back an hour. Why should it? _I_
had no hand in her father's murder; and as for Norman, I am very sorry,
but I cannot help him in any way. If he has not deserved this by his
guilt, he has by his folly; and it's not to be expected, I fancy, that I
should entirely sacrifice myself for the sake of a half-brother whom I
never saw--more particularly as the chances are, that the sacrifice
would do him no good, and only waste my time, and make me unhappy."
"And have you no fear of Mrs. Aytoun and her son?" inquired Anne, in a
low voice.
"No; the difference of name is very fortunate--how should any one
suppose that a Rutherford in the east was the brother of a Ross in the
north? Besides, if they _had_ any suspicion, I hope they are
sufficiently anxious about Alice and her happiness, to keep it to
themselves. We are not in the age of feuds now, sister Anne: don't
trouble yourself about it."
"If we are past feuds, we are not past nature," said Anne, hastily.
"Lewis, I saw Mrs. Catherine this morning. I could not rest till I had
ascertained whether there was any hope, that Alice was not this man's
child. Mrs. Catherine knew the reason of my inquiries and agitation, and
exclaimed immediately that you must not see Alice again; before this
time Alice knows all, and however you might hope to weaken the
impression it will make upon her--and you could not succeed even in
that, for Alice with all her gentleness would do nothing so abhorrent to
natural feeling and universal opinion, were her heart to break--you know
very well that it would be folly to attempt moving Mrs. Catherine.--She
will not permit your engagement to continue, Lewis--you may be sure of
that."
Lewis burst forth into indignant exclamations: "Who dared to interfere
between Alice and him? who would venture, for a crime done before her
birth, to hinder their happiness?"
"Lewis," said Anne, "this is quite useless. I do not want to interfere
between Alice and you. I believe the great obstacle is removed, and that
with but proper exertion on your own part, you may at once secure your
purpose, and deliver our poor Norman; but, as for daring and venturing,
would Mrs. Catherine hesitate, think you? would Alice Aytoun's brother
be afraid? Lewis, you are mistaken: it may break poor Alice's girlish
heart--far too young for such a weight--but it will not make her
rebelious; it will lead her to no unwomanly extreme: she will submit!"
Lewis was for a time passionate and loud, inveighing against them all
for keeping him in ignorance, blaming Anne for telling Mrs. Catherine,
and indulging in a thousand extravagances. Anne stood calmly beside him,
and bore it all, too deeply bent on her own object to heed these
effusions of passion.
"And supposing it possible," exclaimed Lewis, sitting down again, after
his passion had nearly exhausted itself--"supposing it possible to prove
Norman innocent, what then? I don't see how my position is at all
bettered. What will I have to offer Alice? Some poor thousand pounds,
perhaps, that may be doled out to me as the younger brother's
portion--no house, no certain means of living. I suppose you would have
me get a school in Portoran, or apply for a situation in the Bank, or go
into a writer's office in Edinburgh," continued Lewis, bitterly, "and
think I was anticipating love in a cottage, when I spoke of Alice
Aytoun!"
Anne could have said much--could have begged and prayed him to believe
that the landless Lewis Ross, who had saved his brother, would be a
nobler man by far than the Laird of Merkland, who had left his nearest
relative to languish out dishonored days in a strange country, uncared
for and unsuccored: but she began to know better the material she had to
work upon.
"Norman has his own land, Lewis," she said. "Had he remained at home,
and had all been well with him, you still would have inherited Merkland.
I know that certainly."
"Is it so?" said Lewis, eagerly. "If it is legally so--if the estate is
settled on me to the exclusion of Norman, of course that puts the matter
in quite a different aspect. And so you think he is innocent?"
Lewis took the letters in his hand again.
"I do not _think_ he is innocent, Lewis," said Anne. "I may take your
licence of strong speaking, in respect to this. I never had a
doubt--never a fear. I _felt_ that he was innocent. The joy was almost
too much for me this morning. Lewis, do not think at all--open your
heart to feel the agony of Norman's, and you will know that he is not
guilty!"
"Sit down, Anne," said Lewis, more gently. "I want to look at these
letters again."
Anne sat down. Lewis opened the papers and read them over carefully once
more. He did not say any thing when he had finished, but remained for
some time in silence. Their own internal force of truthfulness did not
carry conviction to the cold, logical understanding of Lewis; he did not
let his own heart have any influence in the judgment: he thought of
legal evidence, not of moral certainty.
"And what would you advise should be done?" he said at length, as he met
Anne's eye.
Anne repeated to him all the further particulars which she had learned
from Esther Fleming, together with the nurse's suspicion that Norman
knew who was the murderer, and was content thus far to suffer in his
stead. Lewis's interest was excited by the idea of discovering the true
criminal, but flagged again when Anne told him how bootless Esther's
inquiries had been, and how widely spread was the conviction of Norman's
guilt--and again he repeated, almost listlessly: "What would you have me
do?"
"I would have you go to this place yourself immediately, Lewis," said
Anne. "I would have you set out at once without the loss of any more
time, and yourself go among the people.--You will find many of them, no
doubt, who remember the story--it is not of a kind to be forgotten. Act
upon Esther's suggestion--endeavor to find the real criminal--go over
the whole neighborhood--spare no labor--no trouble. It may be a work
demanding much time and much patience. Never mind that, the result is
worth the toil of a lifetime, and you, Lewis, you have a special stake
in it--there is a definite reward for you."
But the work, albeit he had a special stake in it, looked very different
in the eyes of Lewis. He did not answer for some time, and then said:
"It's entirely out of the question to go myself. I could not do it. I
have neither time nor patience to expend so, but I'll tell you what I'll
do, Anne--I'll write to Robert Ferguson--I saw him this morning leaving
Woodsmuir to return to Edinburgh; he is a cool, shrewd, lawyer-like lad.
I'll trust it to him."
"But think of the danger to Norman in making this secret known,"
exclaimed Anne.
"We need not tell him that," said Lewis, "there is no occasion whatever
for trusting him with that. He can have some hint of what has occurred
lately, and that it is a matter of some importance to us. I will write
to him to-day. Does that satisfy you, Anne?"
There was no choice; she was compelled to be satisfied with it. The
lawyer, no doubt, might manage it best, yet Anne had an instinctive
confidence, in a search which should be guided, not by business-like
acuteness alone, but by the loving energy of a heart which yearned over
the outcast Norman, the desolate exiled brother. And Lewis spoke so
coldly, "of _some_ importance"--how the strange limitation chilled her
heart.
"And I want you to do something for me in return, Anne," said Lewis,
looking at his watch. "After dinner, come up with me to the Tower, and
tell your story to Mrs. Catherine and Alice, your own way. You can do it
better than I could, for you have more faith in it than I--altogether,"
he continued, rising, with a laugh: "You are more a believing person
than I am, I fancy, Anne--no doubt it is quite natural--you women
receive whatever's presented to you--it's all very right that you
should--but something more is required of _us_."
Alas! poor Lewis! He did not know how incomparably higher that faculty
of belief was than his meagre and poor calculations; nor could
comprehend the instant and intuitive apprehension, which darted to its
true conclusion at once, and left him weighing his sands of legal
evidence so very far behind.
The evening was gusty, wild and melancholy, one of those nights that
make the fireside lights look doubly cheerful; and just as little Alice
Aytoun crept disconsolately up stairs in the darkness, Lewis and Anne
left Merkland for the Tower. They had not much conversation on the way,
for Anne was busied, chalking out a plan of procedure for herself,
should Robert Ferguson's mission fail, and Lewis had lighter fancies,
unwillingly obscured by some tinge of the truths he had learned that
day, to keep him silent. There were no lights in the accustomed windows
when they reached the Tower. Mrs. Catherine's own sitting-room was dark,
and from the windows of the dining-parlor, there came only the red
glimmer of firelight. Archibald Sutherland sat there alone, as Mrs.
Catherine and Alice had left him, and had been too deeply engaged with
his own thoughts to heed the gathering darkness.
"Mr. Archibald is in the dining-parlor," said Jacky, opening the door,
as she spoke, to admit Lewis, and gliding back instantly to Anne's side.
With natural delicacy, the servants had followed Mr. Ferguson's example,
and when they could no longer call the broken man "Strathoran," returned
to the kindly name of his boyhood.
"And if ye please, Miss Anne," continued Jacky, looking up wistfully
into Anne's face. "Mrs. Catherine is in the little room."
Anne hesitated--Jacky's keen eyes were fixed upon her anxiously. "May I
go in, I wonder, Jacky?"
"If ye please, Miss Anne--" began the girl.
"What, Jacky?"
"Miss Alice is no weel--I saw her gaun up to her ain room, slow and
heavy. Mostly ye canna hear her foot, it's like a spirit's--the night it
was dragging slow and sad-like, and I heard her say--"
Jacky paused.
"What did you hear her say?"
"It was in her ain room--I wasna listening, Miss Anne, I just heard
it--she said 'there is no one with me'--low, low--like as if she was in
grief. Miss Anne, will ye go up to Miss Alice? There was naebody near
her but me, and she wasna wanting me. Will ye go, Miss Anne?"
Jacky's keen eyes was softened with an involuntary tear.
"I must see Mrs. Catherine first," said Anne, passing on hurriedly to
the little room. Jacky seated herself in the window-seat near the
library-door, in meditative solitude; the strange, chivalrous girl's
heart within her beating high with plans of help and aid to that
gentle, weeping Alice, whom all the stronger spirits round her seemed
instinctively to join in warding evil and trouble from.
The door of the little room was at once opened to Anne, and she found
Mrs. Catherine within, the trace of a tear even visible upon her sterner
cheek.
"The poor bairn, child!" she exclaimed. "The poor, bit, silly, gentle
thing! I could almost have seen yourself suffering, sooner than her. If
stronger folk feel it even more painfully, there is aye a kind of
struggle with their sorrow; but yonder, there was no strength to make
resistance, child. The trouble sank down, like a stone, to the bottom of
the bairn's heart. I cannot get away from my eye the bit, wan,
unresisting, hopeless look of her."
"Mrs. Catherine!" exclaimed Anne, "I must go to her instantly. I bring
hope. Do not look at me in anger. I am speaking words of truth and
soberness: the matter does not stand as you think--as I thought this
morning. Mrs. Catherine, Norman is innocent."
Mrs. Catherine made an emphatic motion with her hand, as if commanding
Anne to go on; and waited breathlessly.
"Mrs, Catherine, I have his own words to build upon. I have the recorded
conviction of my father. Do you think they could be deceived, to whom he
was dearest upon earth? My father, Esther, Marion his wife, who went
with him, they all believed him innocent--the last, by sharing his fate.
You could not but believe his own words. He did not do it, Mrs.
Catherine. He is innocent."
Mrs. Catherine laid her hands upon Anne's shoulders, and gazed with
earnest scrutiny into her face.
"His own words--sharing his fate--what does the bairn mean? Child, I
thought there was some other terror upon your mind, this morning, that
ye did not tell me. Is Norman Rutherford alive?"
"Mrs. Catherine, his secret is safe with you," said Anne, drawing the
letters from her bosom. "Norman is alive, unjustly condemned, and
innocent. We must prove that first: but take these, and let me go to
Alice."
"Sit down upon that seat, and wait," said Mrs. Catherine, peremptorily.
"I must see the ground of your hope myself, before ye sicken the silly
bairn with what may be but a false sunshine. Give me the papers, child."
The lamp was speedily lighted, and Mrs. Catherine seated herself to
examine them. How different was the keen interest inspiring the strong
face which bent over them, the eyes that traced their incoherent lines
so rapidly, from the cold examination of Lewis. How different the
conclusion.
"The Lord be thanked!" burst from Mrs. Catherine's lips, as she came to
the end of Norman's letter. "The Lord, in His infinite tenderness, be
thanked for the comfort. Gowan, what are ye lingering for? Go to the
bairn, and give her the good news. It is meet that I should be alone.
Hear ye, child, go to the bairn."
Anne needed no urging--she left the room instantly, and hurried up
stairs.
Alice's gay bower was dark--the fire burning dull and low: the very
flowers drooping like their mistress. Anne passed through the opened
door hastily, to the still darker and chiller bed-chamber within, where
she could see the girl's slight figure lying on the bed. Alice was
roused by the approaching footsteps, and said, as Anne drew near her:
"Not now, Bessie; leave me, I do not want you now."
Anne advanced, and gently drew the hidden cheek from the wet pillow.
"It is not Bessie," she said: "it is I, Alice, Anne Ross, your sister."
Alice raised her head.
"My sister! Ah! you do not know."
Her hair was thrown back in a momentary attempt at pride, and then Alice
hid her face again in her hands. It was as Mrs. Catherine said; the
gentle little heart could offer no resistance to this dull, dead weight
of sorrow.
"I do know, Alice!" said Anne. "Look up now, and do not weep. Lewis is
waiting to see you. Mrs. Catherine knows he is here--Alice!"
"Is it not true?" whispered Alice; "is it not true? You would not call
me Alice if it were true. Oh! Miss Ross, tell me."
"It is not true; we have found out that we were wrong," said Anne,
soothingly. "Rise, now, and let me be your maid instead of Bessie, and
you shall hear it all when you are able."
Alice had half risen, and was already clinging to Anne like a child.
"Tell me now; I am able. Oh! Miss Ross, why did Mrs. Catherine tell me
that? why did you let her? I could not bear it. If it were to come back
again I should die--I know I should die!"
Anne smiled sadly. And yet it might have been so; the gentle and weak
may droop their heads like flowers, and die; the stronger must live on,
bearing undying griefs through long lifetimes: it is so appointed. Very
sad was this plaintive, murmuring sorrow from lips so young. Sadder
still was the conscious life of that other more perfect woman of the
ballad: "I wish I was dead, but I'm no like to dee."
Jacky was hovering not far off with lights, and Anna lifted her little
patient tenderly, put her dress in order, and led her down to the
cheerful fireside of Mrs. Catherine's inner drawing-room, where Lewis
joined her by-and-bye, and from the warm and hopeful air of which, glad
lights went flashing back again over the fair horizon of Alice Aytoun's
life.
"Child," said Mrs. Catherine, as they parted, "I perceive it will be a
hard work and a sore; but let me see you fainting, if you daur! Make no
scruple to ask whatsoever aid is needful from me--ye ken that. You
cannot see the truthfulness of it, child, as I do, that ken the lad. Be
of good cheer, and never doubt that the Lord will bring light out of
this great darkness in his own time."