'No, no,' said Nicol, speciously, 'we have the other—much more private. Here anyone may come at any moment, you see, and if your business is private—' It was a touch of devilish cunning, for terror seized Alison at the thought of an intrusion.
'If, then, you think it wiser—' she said, looking about her with startled eyes.
'Ay, come away—much wiser'—said Nicol. 'See here!' He held open the door of the inner room—its only entrance—and Alison walked in. The moment her feet were over the threshold, Nicol slammed-to the door upon her, and locked it with a loud report.
'There, my bonny bird!' he called, his grinning mouth to the panel; 'we've got you safe and sound! Are ye "alone" enough in there for your taste? 'Od, it's there you'll bide till Rob comes hame and lets ye out!' He exploded in a fit of laughter; here was a piece of horse-play after his own heart.
Stunned and stupid, Alison had tottered a few steps into the inner room. A bed in the corner, unmade since the morning, showed that it was the poet's sleeping chamber. And she was trapped beyond all possibility of escape.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The letter which Nicol had conveyed from Burns to Herries lay unopened at the office of the latter for a matter of about, perhaps, thirty-six hours. Delivered very late in the evening, it was not conveyed to Herries that night, because he had already retired. In the early morning hours he was summoned to the death-bed of his partner, and he only returned from that melancholy scene in order, after a hurried meal, to set off to a remote village in the Pentlands, where, under an engagement with the dead man, he must make arrangements for the funeral. Returning at night, dog-tired, after many hours spent in the saddle (for it had been necessary to go on horseback), he had not then attempted to examine his correspondence. But the first letter that he opened in the morning was that from St. James's Square.
He sat still after its perusal—stunned. The morning sun streamed in through the three long windows of his fine room, and found him, perhaps on hour later, still sitting motionless, the letter in his hand. The anguish of surprise was not his, for, after all, the letter contained mere confirmation of long-latent suspicion. But it came as a fearful blow nevertheless. Here was a man who had expected little of men and women, but he had got less than he expected after all. He had believed that he had cherished no illusions, and dreamed no dreams; but the modest hopes that he had allowed himself to entertain of faith in one human being, whom he loved, were dashed. The cynic's disgust, as well as the man's heart-wrung sorrow, was his portion.
Yet Herries was a lawyer, keen of vision, and trained in the detection of deceit, and to him that letter actually did smack false at the first reading, and afterwards also. He had heard much, as was inevitable, of the sturdy independence of the peasant poet; certainly this letter was not the letter of such a man. It was a suspiciously subservient, an actually cringing letter, and in every line rang false. Yet Herries knew, and recognised at once, the poet's handwriting; for Burns's letters at that day were often handed round the town as curiosities, and the young lawyer had seen at least a score. A certain wearied languor had come over Herries, numbing his faculties, so that in this matter they had almost ceased to serve him. He told himself that his love was dead—nipped by this long frost of cold suspicion, and ruined forever by this base association with men and ways unclean and devious. Yet he was a just man, and he would not condemn Alison unheard. He had already given her the chance of explanation and defence; he would give it her again. He would seek her out, and he would confront her with the letter—ask her if it were true or false. He would make her speak; and those grave lips that he had kissed so often: those candid eyes—that indescribably childlike wide innocence of brow that had been Alison's charm, rather than and (to him) beyond all beauty—well, he should learn once for all if they lied, and were only the fair outer covering of deceit and blackness. It was impossible that he could be absent again during office hours, for the previous day had been a blank one, and the pressure of the accumulated work of the past weeks was becoming daily more unendurable. But in the evening he would go to the Potterrow, and put an end to the mysteries that destroyed his peace.
He set out, accordingly, after he had dined. It was a damp, windy night, with heavy rain-clouds hurrying from the west. Hardly an hour before him Alison had trod those pavements, her face set to the New Town, trying to hide herself as she went. Herries walked with his head held high, conning over the stringent things that he should say in the coming interview, yet striving also that he should be just and calm. Jean opened to him with a glum face. Well did the honest servant know that things were going wrong. Her sympathies were all with Alison.