'Nae man speirs at me for glaikit lasses,' he observed virtuously; 'you are come to the wrong shop.'
Nicol burst into a coarse guffaw.
'Nay, sir,' he said, 'you are come right enough, though Rob, here, is too modest to admit it. We hae your bonny bird safe and sound.... Here, mistress, come out now! there's ain to fetch you—' He flung open the bedroom door, close to which he had stood, with his hand upon the lock, since Herries's entry. And out of the dark room into the light one walked Alison Graham.
Her face, her neck, her very hands, were white: they were drenched with whiteness, so that she seemed more dead than alive; and the lines of her face were drawn so deep, that it had suddenly lost the roundness and the air of youth. Her wild eyes went from face to face with a hunted look; the light hurt them, and she raised her hand, but it fell powerless, while her look riveted itself at last on her lover.
'Alison!' said Herries. 'How ... how ...' But he could not speak. Yet justice should be hers—that thought printed itself in fiery letters on his reeling brain. Here—no matter that it was before these men, before them or before the world—he would ask her why she stood there, and let her clear herself if she could.
'Alison,' he said, going close up to her, 'whose shame is this—yours or another's?'
Alison's eyes looked round the room in a vain search for help. They fell on Nicol, who, crassly ignorant of the real circumstances of her case, could hardly have helped her, and certainly would not if he could. They fell on Burns, but Burns was drunk, and had he been sober, must sooner have protected the woman he had nearly ruined than helpless Alison. Alison's eyes fell to the ground, and all the long struggle of the past weeks concentrated itself in the anguish of one moment's swift decision. Her happiness, or Nancy's honour—which?
Her chin sank upon her breast: she seemed to shrink—the image of shame.
'I ... I have deceived you, sir,' she stammered, with lips that scarcely moved.
It was the truth, but so little of it, and so hopelessly perverted! Alison raised her eyes to her lover's face, and he should have read the real truth in them, but he was blind.