To say that I got rid of the recollection of the Lady of Ellermore when
I went upstairs, after a cheerful evening, through a long and slippery
gallery to my room in the wing, would be untrue. The curious experience
I had just had dwelt in my mind with a touch of not unpleasant
perplexity. “Of course,” I said to myself, “there must be something to
account for those footsteps--some hidden way in which the sounds must
come.” Perhaps my first idea would turn out to be correct--that there
was a byroad to the farm or to the stables, which in some states of the
atmosphere, or perhaps it might even be always, echoed back the sounds
of passing feet in some subterranean vibration. One has heard of such
things, one has heard, indeed, of every kind of natural wonder, some of
them no more easy to explain than the other interpretation; but so long
as you have science with you, whether you understand it or not, you are
all right. I could not help wondering, however, whether, if by chance I
heard those steps in the long gallery outside my door, I should refer
the matter comfortably to the science of acoustics. I was tormented,
until I fell asleep, by a vague expectation of hearing them. I could not
get them out of my mind or out of my ears, so distinct were they--the
light step, soft but with energy in it, evidently a woman’s step. I
could not help recollecting, with a tingling sensation through all my
veins, the distinctness of the turn it gave--the coming back, the steps
going in a line opposite to ours. It seemed to me that from moment to
moment I must hear it again in the gallery, and then how could it be
explained?
Next day--for I slept very well after I had succeeded in getting to
sleep, and what I had heard did not by any means haunt my dreams--next
day I managed to elude all the pleasant occupations of the house, and,
as soon as I could get free from observation, I took my way to the
Lady’s Walk. I had said that I had letters to write--a well-worn phrase,
which of course means exactly what one pleases. I walked up and down the
Lady’s Walk, and could neither hear nor see anything. On this side of
the shrubbery there was no possibility of any concealed path; on the
other side the bank went sloping to the water’s edge. The avenue ran
along from the corner of the loch half-way round the green plateau on
which the house was planted, and at the upper end came out upon the
elevated ground behind the house; but no road crossed it, nor was there
the slightest appearance of any mode by which a steady sound not its own
could be communicated here. I examined it all with the utmost care,
looking behind the bole of every tree, as if the secret might be there,
and my heart gave a leap when I perceived what seemed to me one narrow
track worn along the ground. Fancy plays us curious pranks even when she
is most on her guard. It was a strange idea that I, who had come here
with the purpose of finding a way of explaining the curious phenomena
upon which so long and lasting a superstition had been built, should be
so quickly infected by it. I saw the little track, quite narrow but very
distinct, and though of course I did not believe in the Lady of
Ellermore, yet within myself I jumped at the certainty that this was her
track. It gave me a curious sensation. The certainty lay underneath the
scepticism, as if they were two things which had no connection with
each other. Had anyone seen me it must have been supposed that I was
looking for something among the bushes, so closely did I scrutinise
every foot of the soil and every tree.
It exercised a fascination upon me which I could not resist. The
Psychical Society did not exist in those days, so far as I know, but
there are many minds outside that inquisitive body to whom the
authentication of a ghost story, or, to speak more practically, the
clearing up of a superstition, is very attractive. I managed to elude
the family arrangements once more at the same hour at which Miss
Campbell and I had visited the Lady’s Walk on the previous evening. It
was a lovely evening, soft and warm, the western sky all ablaze with
colour, the great branches of the beeches thrown out in dark maturity of
greenness upon the flush of orange and crimson, melting into celestial
rosy red as it rose higher, and flinging itself in frothy heaps across
the serene blue above. The same wonderful colours glowed in reflection
out of the loch. The air was of magical clearness, and earth and sky
seemed stilled with an almost awe of their own loveliness, happiness,
and peace.
“The holy time was quiet as a nun,
Breathless with adoration.”
For my part, however, I noticed this only in passing, being intent on
other thoughts. From the loch there came a soft tumult of voices. It was
Saturday evening, and all the boys were at home. They were getting out
the boats for an evening row, and the white sail of the toy yacht rose
upon the gleaming water like a little white cloud among the rosy clouds
of that resplendent sky. I stood between two of the beeches that formed
a sort of arch, and looked out upon them, distracted for an instant by
the pleasant distant sound which came softly through the summer air.
Next moment I turned sharply round with a start, in spite of myself;
turned quickly to see who it was coming after me. There was, I need not
say, not a soul within sight. The beeches fluttered softly in the warm
air; the long shadows of their great boles lay unbroken along the path;
nothing else was visible, not even a bird on a bank. I stood breathless
between the two trees, with my back turned to the loch, gazing at
nothing, while the soft footsteps came quietly on, and passed me--passed
me! with a slight waft of air, I thought, such as a slight, light figure
might have made; but that was imagination perhaps. Imagination! was it
not all imagination? or what was it? No shadows or darkness to conceal a
form by; full light of day radiant with colour; the most living,
delightful air, all sweet with pleasure. I stood there speechless and
without power to move. _She_ went along softly, without changing the
gentle regularity of her tread, to the end of the walk. The steps grew
fainter as they went farther and farther from me. I never listened so
intently in my life. I said to myself, “If they go out of hearing I
shall know it is merely an excited imagination.” And on they went,
almost out of hearing, only the faintest touch upon the ground; then
there was a momentary pause, and my heart stood still, but leaped again
to my throat and sent wild waves of throbbing to my ears next moment:
they had turned and were coming back.
I cannot describe the extraordinary effect. If it had been dark it would
have been altogether different. The brightness, the life around, the
absence of all that one associates with the supernatural, produced a
thrill of emotion to which I can give no name. It was not fear; yet my
heart beat as it had never done in any dangerous emergency (and I have
passed through some that were exciting enough) before; my breath seemed
to go away from me. Would she come back to where I was? She did, passing
me once more, with the same movement of the air (or so I thought), and
turned again. But by that time my pulses were all clanging so in my ears
that I could bear it no longer. I turned and walked precipitately away,
stumbling down the little slope and losing myself in the shrubberies
which were beneath the range of the low sun, now almost set, and felt
dank and cold in the contrast. It was something like plunging into a
bath of cold air after the warmth and glory above.
It was in this way that my first experience ended. Miss Campbell looked
at me a little curiously with a half-smile when I joined the party at
the loch side. She divined where I had been, and perhaps something of
the strange agitation I felt, but she took no further notice; and as I
was in time to find a place in the boat, where she had established
herself with the children, I lost nothing by my meeting with the
mysterious passenger in the Lady’s Walk.
I did not go near the place for some days afterwards, but I cannot say
that it was ever long out of my thoughts. I had long arguments with
myself on the subject, representing to myself that I had heard the sound
before hearing the superstition, and then had found no difficulty in
believing that it was the sound of some passenger on an adjacent path,
perhaps invisible from the walk. I had not been able to find that path,
but still it might exist at some angle which, according to the natural
law of the transmission of sounds--Bah! what jargon this was! Had I not
heard _her_ turn, felt her pass me, watched her coming back? And then I
paused with a loud burst of laughter at myself. “Ass! you never had any
of these sensations before you heard the story,” I said. And that was
true; but I heard the steps before I heard the story; and, now I think
of it, was much startled by them, and set my mind to work to account for
them, as you know. “And what evidence have you that the first
interpretation was not the right one?” myself asked me with scorn; upon
which question I turned my back with a hopeless contempt of the
pertinacity of that other person who has always so many objections to
make. Interpretation! could any interpretation ever do away with the
effect upon my actual senses of that invisible passer-by? But the most
disagreeable effect was this, that I could not shut out from my mind the
expectation of hearing those same steps in the gallery outside my door
at night. It was a long gallery, running the full length of the wing,
highly polished and somewhat slippery, a place in which any sound was
important. I never went along to my room without a feeling that at any
moment I might hear those steps behind me, or after I had closed my door
might be conscious of them passing. I never did so, but neither have I
ever got free of the thought.
A few days after, however, another incident occurred that drove the
Lady’s Walk and its invisible visitor out of my mind. We were all
returning home in the long northern twilight from a mountain expedition.
How it was that I was the last to return I do not exactly recollect. I
think Miss Campbell had forgotten to give some directions to the
watchman’s wife at the lodge, which I volunteered to carry for her. My
nearest way back would have been through the Lady’s Walk, had not some
sort of doubtful feeling restrained me from taking it. Though I have
said and felt that the effect of these mysterious footsteps was enhanced
by the full daylight, still I had a sort of natural reluctance to put
myself in the way of encountering them when the darkness began to fall.
I preferred the shrubberies, though they were darker and less
attractive. As I came out of their shade, however, someone met me,
coming apparently from that direction. I thought at first it was
Charlotte, for the outline was like hers. It was almost dark, and what
little light there was was behind her, so that I could not distinguish
her features. She was tall and slight, and wrapped apparently in a long
cloak, a dress usual enough in those rainy regions. I think, too, that
her veil was over her face. The way in which she approached made it
apparent that she was going to speak to me, which surprised me a little,
though there was nothing extraordinary in it; for of course by this time
all the neighbourhood knew who I was and that I was a visitor at
Ellermore. There was a little air of timidity and hesitation about her
as she came forward, from which I supposed that my sudden appearance
startled her a little, and yet was welcome as an unexpected way of
getting something done that she wanted. _Tant de choses en un mot_, you
will say--and yet it was quite true. She came up to me quickly as soon
as she had made up her mind. Her voice was very soft, but very peculiar,
with a sort of far-away sound, as if the veil or evening air interposed
a sort of visionary distance between her and me. “I cannot speak to
them. I must not speak to them,” she said, then paused a little and
seemed to look at me with eyes that shone dimly through the shadows like
stars in a misty sky.
“Can I be of any use to you? I am living here,” I said, very much
surprised.
“Tell them it’s Colin! Colin! in trouble and temptation. Oh, and I must
not speak!”
“Colin!” I said, startled; then, after a moment, “Pardon me, this is an
uncomfortable message to entrust to a stranger. Is he ill? What must I
tell them?” I was still less interested than surprised.
“In great trouble and temptation,” she repeated, with a sort of wail.
“Oh, the bonnie boy, the bonnie boy!”
“Stop,” I cried, “stop!” for she seemed about to pass on. “If I am to
say this there must be something more. Who is it that sends the message?
They will ask me, of course. And what is wrong?”
She seemed to wring her hands under her cloak, and looked at me with an
attitude and gesture of supplication. “In great trouble,” she said, “in
great trouble! And me, I can do nothing; nor even speak, nor even
speak!”
And, notwithstanding all that I could say, she left me so, with a wave
of her hand, disappearing among the dark bushes. It may be supposed that
this was no agreeable charge to give to a guest, one who owed nothing
but pleasure and kindness to the Campbells, but had no acquaintance
beyond the surface with their concerns. They were, it is true, very free
in spirit, and seemed to have as little _dessous des cartes_ in their
life and affairs as could be imagined. But Colin was the one who was
spoken of less freely than any other in the family. He had been expected
several times since I came, but had never appeared. It seemed that he
had a way of postponing his arrival, and “of course,” it was said in the
family, never came when he was expected. I had wondered more than once
at the testy tone in which the old gentleman spoke of him sometimes, and
the line of covert defence always adopted by Charlotte. To be sure, he
was the eldest, and might naturally assume a greater independence of
action than the other young men, who were yet scarcely beyond the age of
pupilage and in their father’s house.
But from this, as well as from the still more natural and apparent
reason that to bring them bad news of any kind was most disagreeable
and inappropriate on my part, the commission I had so strangely received
hung very heavily upon me. I turned it over in my mind as I dressed for
dinner (we had been out all day, and dinner was much later than usual in
consequence) with great perplexity and distress. Was I bound to give a
message forced upon me in such a way? If the lady had news of any
importance to give, why did she turn away from the house, where she
could have communicated it at once, and confide it to a stranger? On the
other hand, would I be justified in keeping back anything that might be
of so much importance to them? It might perhaps be something for which
she did not wish to give her authority. Sometimes people in such
circumstances will even condescend to write an anonymous letter to give
the warning they think necessary, without betraying to the victims of
misfortune that anyone whom they know is acquainted with it. Here was a
justification for the strange step she had taken. It might be done in
the utmost kindness to them, if not to me; and what if there might be
some real danger afloat and Colin be in peril, as she said? I thought
over these things anxiously before I went downstairs, but even up to the
moment of entering that bright and genial drawing-room, so full of
animated faces and cheerful talk, I had not made up my mind what I
should do. When we returned to it after dinner I was still uncertain. It
was late, and the children were sent to bed. The boys went round to the
stables to see that the horses were not the worse for their day’s work.
Mr. Campbell retired to his library. For a little while I was left
alone, a thing that very rarely happened. Presently Miss Campbell came
downstairs from the children’s rooms, with that air about her of rest
and sweetness, like a reflection of the little prayers she has been
hearing and the infant repose which she has left, which hangs about a
young mother when she has disposed her babies to sleep. Charlotte, by
her right of being no mother, but only a voluntary mother by deputy, had
a still more tender light about her in the sweetness of this duty which
God and her goodwill, not simple nature, had put upon her. She came
softly into the room with her shining countenance. “Are you alone, Mr.
Temple?” she said, with a little surprise. “How rude of those boys to
leave you,” and came and drew her chair towards the table where I was in
the kindness of her heart.
“I am very glad they have left me if I may have a little talk with you,”
I said; and then, before I knew, I had told her. She was the kind of
woman to whom it is a relief to tell whatever may be on your heart. The
fact that it was her own concern seemed to move her less than the care
to myself. She was very much surprised and disturbed. “Colin in trouble?
Oh, that might very well be,” she said, then stopped herself. “You are
his friend,” she said; “you will not misunderstand me, Mr. Temple. He is
very independent, and not so open as the rest of us. That is nothing
against him. We are all rather given to talking; we keep nothing to
ourselves--except Colin. And then he is more away than the rest.” The
first necessity in her mind seemed to be this, of defending the absent.
Then came the question, From whom could the warning be? Charley came in
at this moment, and she called him to her eagerly. “Here is a very
strange thing happened. Somebody came up to Mr. Temple in the shrubbery
and told him to tell us that Colin was in trouble.”
“Colin!” I could see that Charley was, as Charlotte had been, more
distressed than surprised. “When did you hear from him last?” he said.
“On Monday; but the strange thing is, who could it be that sent such a
message? You said a lady, Mr. Temple?”
“What like was she?” said Charley.
Then I described as well as I could. “She was tall and very slight;
wrapped up in a cloak, so that I could not make out much, and her veil
down. And it was almost dark.”
“It is clear she did not want to be recognised,” Charley said.
“There was something peculiar about her voice, but I really cannot
describe it; a strange tone, unlike anything”--
“Marion Gray has a peculiar voice; she is tall and slight. But what
could she know about Colin?”
“I will tell you who is more likely,” cried Charley, “and that is Susie
Cameron. Her brother is in London now; they may have heard from him.”
“Oh, Heaven forbid! oh, Heaven forbid! the Camerons of all people!”
Charlotte cried, wringing her hands. The action struck me as so like
that of the veiled stranger that it gave me a curious shock. I had not
time to follow out the vague, strange suggestion that it seemed to
breathe into my mind; but the sensation was as if I had suddenly,
groping, come upon someone in the dark.
“Whoever it was,” I said, “she was not indifferent, but full of concern
and interest”--
“Susie would be that,” Charley said, looking significantly at his
sister, who rose from her chair in great distress.
“I would telegraph to him at once,” she said, “but it is too late
to-night.”
“And what good would it do to telegraph? If he is in trouble it would be
no help to him.”
“But what can I do? what else can I do?” she cried. I had plunged them
into sudden misery, and could only look on now as an anxious but
helpless spectator, feeling at the same time as if I had intruded myself
upon a family affliction; for it was evident that they were not at all
unprepared for “trouble” to Colin. I felt my position very embarrassing,
and rose to go away.
“I feel miserably guilty,” I said, “as if I had been the bearer of bad
news; but I am sure you will believe that I would not for anything in
the world intrude upon”--
Charlotte paused to give me a pale sort of smile, and pointed to the
chair I had left. “No, no,” she said, “don’t go away, Mr. Temple. We do
not conceal from you that we are anxious--that we were anxious even
before--but don’t go away. I don’t think I will tell my father, Charley.
It would break his rest. Let him have his night’s rest whatever happens,
and there is nothing to be done to-night”--
“We will see what the post brings to-morrow,” Charley said.
And then the consultation ended abruptly by the sudden entrance of the
boys, bringing a gust of fresh night air with them. The horses were not
a grain the worse, though they had been out all day; even old Grumbling
Geordie, the coachman, had not a word to say. “You may have them again
to-morrow, Chatty, if you like,” said Tom. She had sat down to her work,
and met their eyes with an unruffled countenance. “I hope I am not so
unreasonable,” she said, with her tranquil looks; only I could see a
little tremor in her hand, as she stooped over the socks she was
knitting. She laid down her work after a while, and went to the piano
and played accompaniments, to which first Jack and then Tom sang. She
did it without any appearance of effort, yielding to all the wishes of
the youngsters, while I looked on wondering. How can women do this sort
of thing? It is more than one can divine.
Next morning Mr. Campbell asked “by the bye,” but with a pucker in his
forehead, which, being now enlightened on the subject, I could
understand, if there was any letter from Colin. “No,” Charlotte said
(who, for her part, had turned over all her letters with a swift,
anxious scrutiny). “But that is nothing,” she said, “for we heard on
Monday.” The old gentleman uttered a “Umph!” of displeasure. “Tell him I
think it a great want in manners that he is not here to receive Mr.
Temple.” “Oh, father, Mr. Temple understands,” cried Charlotte, and she
turned upon me those mild eyes, in which there was now a look that went
to my heart, an appeal at once to my sympathy and my forbearance,
bidding me not to ask, not to speak, yet to feel with her all the same.
If she could have known the rush of answering feeling with which my
heart replied; but I had to be careful not even to _look_ too much
knowledge, too much sympathy.
After this two days passed without any incident. What letters were sent,
or other communications, to Colin I could not tell. They were great
people for the telegraph, and flashed messages about continually. There
was a telegraph station in the little village, which had been very
surprising to me at first; but I no longer wondered, seeing their
perpetual use of it. People who have to do with business, with great
“works” to manage, get into the way more easily than we others. But
either no answer or nothing of a satisfactory character was obtained,
for I was told no more. The second evening was Sunday, and I was
returning alone from a ramble down the glen. It was Mr. Campbell’s
custom to read a sermon on Sunday evenings to his household, and as I
had, in conformity to the custom of the family, already heard two at
church, I had deserted on this occasion, and chosen the freedom and
quiet of a rural walk instead. It was a cloudy evening, and there had
been rain. The clouds hung low on the hills, and half the surrounding
peaks had retired altogether into the mist. I had scarcely set foot
within the gates when I met once more the lady whose message had brought
so much pain. The trees arched over the approach at this spot, and even
in full daylight it was in deep shade. Now in the evening dimness it was
dark as night. I could see little more than the slim, straight figure,
the sudden perception of which gave me--I could scarcely tell why--a
curious thrill of something like fear. She came hurriedly towards me, an
outline, nothing more, until the same peculiar voice, sweet but sharp,
broke the silence. “Did you tell them?” she said.
It cost me an effort to reply calmly. My heart had begun to beat with an
excitement over which I had no control, like a horse that takes fright
at something which its rider cannot see. I said, “Yes, I told them,”
straining my eyes, yet feeling as if my faculties were restive like that
same horse, and would not obey me, would not look or examine her
appearance as I desired. But indeed it would have been in vain, for it
was too dark to see.
“But there’s nothing done, nothing done!” she said. “Would I come for
nothing?” And there was again that movement, the same as I had seen in
Charlotte, of wringing her hands.
“Pardon me,” I said, “will you tell me who you are? I am a stranger
here; no doubt if you would see Miss Campbell herself, or tell me who it
is”--
I felt the words somehow arrested in my throat, and she drew back from
me with a sudden movement. It is hard to characterise a gesture in the
dark, but there seemed to be a motion of impatience and despair in it.
“Who would I be?” she cried, “that could not speak? It’s because you’re
a stranger, and wish them well. Colin, Colin! oh, the bonnie boy!”
“I will carry your message, but, for God’s sake, if it is so important,
tell me who sends it,” I said.
She shook her head and went rapidly past me, notwithstanding the anxious
appeals that I tried to make. She seemed to put out a hand to wave me
back as I stood gazing after her. Just then the lodge door opened. I
suppose the woman within had been disturbed by the sound of the voices,
and a gleam of firelight burst out upon the road. Across this gleam I
saw the slight figure pass quickly, and then a capacious form with a
white apron came out and stood in the door. The sight of the coachman’s
wife in her large and comfortable proportions gave me a certain ease, I
cannot tell why. I hurried up to her. “Who was that that passed just
now?” I asked.
“That passed just now? There was naebody passed. I thought I heard a
voice, and that it was maybe Geordie; but nobody has passed here that I
could see.”
“Nonsense! you must have seen her,” I cried hastily; “she cannot be out
of sight yet. No doubt you would know who she was--a lady, tall and
slight--in a cloak”--
“Eh, sir, ye maun be joking!” cried the woman. “What lady, if it werna
Miss Chatty, would be walking here at this time of the night? Lady! it
might maybe be the schoolmaster’s daughter. She has one of those ulsters
like her betters. But naebody has passed here this hour back, o’ that
I’m confident,” she said.
“Why did you come out, then, just at this moment?” I cried. The woman
contemplated me in the gleam from the fire from top to toe. “You’re the
English gentleman that’s biding up at the house,” she said. “’Deed, I
just heard a step, that was nae doubt your step, and I thought it might
be my man; but there has naebody, far less a lady, whatever she had on,
passed my door coming or going. Is that you, Geordie?” she cried
suddenly, as a step became audible approaching the gate from the outer
side.
“Ay, it’s just me,” responded her husband out of the gloom.
“Have ye met a leddy as ye came along? The gentleman here will have it
that there’s been a leddy passing the gate, and there’s been no leddy. I
would have seen her through the window even if I hadna opened the door.”
“I’ve seen no leddy,” said Geordie, letting himself in with considerable
noise at the foot entrance, which I now remembered to have closed behind
me when I passed through it a few minutes before. “I’ve met no person;
it’s no’ an hour for leddies to be about the roads on Sabbath day at
e’en.”
It was at this moment that a wild suggestion darted into my mind. How it
came I cannot tell. I was not the sort of man, I said to myself, for any
such folly. My imagination had been a little touched, to be sure, by
that curious affair of the footsteps; but this, which seemed to make my
heart stand still and sent a shiver through me, was very different, and
it was a folly not to be entertained for a moment. I stamped my foot
upon it instantly, crushing it on the threshold of the mind. “Apparently
either you or I must be mistaken,” I said, with a laugh at the high tone
of Geordie, who himself had evidently been employed in a jovial
way--quite consistent, according to all I had heard, with very fine
principles in respect to the Sabbath. I had a laugh over this as I went
away, insisting upon the joke to myself as I hurried up the avenue. It
was extremely funny, I said to myself; it would be a capital story among
my other Scotch experiences. But somehow my laugh died away in a very
feeble sort of quaver. The night had grown dark even when I emerged from
under the trees, by reason of a great cloud, full of rain, which had
rolled up over the sky, quenching it out. I was very glad to see the
lights of the house gleaming steadily before me. The blind had not been
drawn over the end window of the drawing-room, and from the darkness
without I looked in upon a scene which was full of warmth and household
calm. Though it was August there was a little glimmer of fire. The
reading of the sermon was over. Old Mr. Campbell still sat at a little
table with the book before him, but it was closed. Charlotte in the
foreground, with little Harry and Mary on either side of her, was
“hearing their paraphrase.”[A]
The boys were putting a clever dog through his tricks in a sort of
clandestine way behind backs, at whom Charlotte would shake a finger now
and then with an admonitory smiling look. Charley was reading or writing
at the end of the room. The soft little chime of the children’s voices,
the suppressed laughter and whispering of the boys, the father’s
leisurely remark now and then, made up a soft murmur of sound which was
like the very breath of quietude and peace. How did I dare, their
favoured guest, indebted so deeply as I was to their kindness, to go in
among them with that mysterious message and disturb their tranquillity
once more?
When I went into the drawing-room, which was not till an hour later,
Charlotte looked up at me smiling, with some playful remark as to my
flight from the evening reading. But as she caught my eye her
countenance changed. She put down her book, and after a little
consideration walked to that end window through which I had looked, and
which was in a deep recess, making me a little sign to follow her. “How
dark the night is,” she said, with a little pretence of looking out, and
then in a hurried under-tone, “Mr. Temple, you have heard something
more?”
“Not any more, but certainly the same thing repeated. I have seen the
lady again.”
“And who is she? Tell me frankly, Mr. Temple. Just the same thing--that
Colin is in trouble? no details? I cannot imagine who can take so much
interest. But you asked her for her name?”
“I asked her, but she gave me no reply. She waved her hand and went on.
I begged her to see you, and not to give me such a commission; but it
was of no use. I don’t know if I ought to trouble you with a vague
warning that only seems intended to give pain.”
“Oh yes,” she cried, “oh yes, it was right to tell me. If I only knew
who it was! Perhaps you can describe her better, since you have seen her
a second time. But Colin has friends--whom we don’t know. Oh, Mr.
Temple, it is making a great claim upon your kindness, but could not you
have followed her and found out who she was?”
“I might have done that,” I said. “To tell the truth, it was so
instantaneous and I was so startled.”
She looked up at me quickly with a questioning air, and grew a little
pale, gazing at me; but whether she comprehended the strange wild fancy
which I could not even permit myself to realise I cannot tell; for
Charley, seeing us standing together, and being in a state of nervous
anxiety, also here came and joined us, and we stood talking together in
an undertone till Mr. Campbell called to know if anything was the
matter. “You are laying your heads together like a set of
conspirators,” said the old gentleman, with a half-laugh. His manner to
me was always benign and gracious; but now that I knew something of the
family troubles, I could perceive a vein of suppressed irritation, a
certain watchfulness, which made him alarming to the other members of
the household. Charlotte gave us both a warning look. “I will tell him
to-morrow--I will delay no longer--but not to-night,” she said. “Mr.
Temple was telling us about his ramble, father. He has just come in in
time to avoid the rain.”
“Well,” said the old man, “he cannot expect to be free from rain up here
in the Highlands. It is wonderful the weather we have had.” And with
this the conversation fell into a very domestic channel. Miss Campbell
this time could not put away the look of excitement and agitation in her
eyes. But she escaped with the children to see them put to bed, and we
sat and talked of politics and other mundane subjects. The boys were all
going to leave Ellermore next day--Tom and Jack for the “works,” Charley
upon some other business. Mr. Campbell made me formal apologies for
them. “I had hoped Colin would have been at home before now to do the
honours of the Highlands; but we expect him daily,” he said. He kept his
eye fixed upon me as if to give emphasis to his words and defy any doubt
that might arise in my mind.
Next morning I was summoned by Charley before I came downstairs to “come
quickly and speak to my father.” I found him in the library, which
opened from the dining-room. He was walking about the room in great
agitation. He began to address me almost before I was in sight.
“Who is this, sir, that you have been having meetings with about Colin?
Some gossip or other that has taken ye in. I need not tell you, Mr.
Temple, a lawyer and an Englishman, that an anonymous statement”--For
once the old gentleman had forgotten himself, his respect for his guest,
his fine manners. He was irritated, obstinate, wounded in pride and
feeling. Charlotte touched him on the arm with a murmured appeal, and
turned her eyes to me in anxious deprecation. But there was no thought
farther from my mind than that of taking offence.
“I fully feel it,” I said; “nor was it my part to bring any disagreeable
suggestions into this house--if it had not been that my own mind was so
burdened with it and Miss Campbell so clear-sighted.”
He cast a look at her, half affectionate, half displeased, and then he
said to me testily, “But who was the woman? That is the question; that
is what I want to know.”
My eyes met Charlotte’s as I looked up. She had grown very pale, and
was gazing at me eagerly, as if she had divined somehow the wild fancy
which once more shot across my mind against all reason and without any
volition of mine.