“Calm and still may be the sleeping face
In the moonlight pale,
The heart waketh in her secret place
Within the veil.
And agonies are suffered in the night;
Or joys embraced too keen for waking sight.”
One morning, just at the gray dawn, Allan had a dream of this kind. He saw Maggie on the sea alone, and he was sailing away from her. She stood upright in a little open boat, which the waves tossed to and fro:—a speechless, woe-stricken woman, who watched him with sorrow-haunted eyes, but neither by word, look, nor movement called him to her.
He awoke, and could sleep no more. The dream had revealed him to himself. Who was there in all the world as dear to him as Maggie was? He felt that she was wretched, and he hated himself for having made her so. That very hour he wrote to David, and said all that he might say, to give her hope and comfort, and over and over he declared his purpose of being in Pittenloch, before David left it for Glasgow. How soon David might get the letter was a very uncertain thing, but still he could not rest until he had written it.
He was dull and silent at breakfast, and hid himself and his moody temper behind his favorite newspaper. Mary had often noticed that men like to be quiet in the early morning; she gave them naturally all the benefit they claim from the pressure of unread mails and doubtful affairs. If her cousin was quiet and sombre, he might have half-a-dozen innocent reasons for the humor; when he felt more social, he would be sure to seek her. And when she saw him sauntering toward her favorite retreat she was nothing astonished. It was the fulfillment of as natural an expectation as that the clock should strike at the full hour.
“I am glad to see you, Allan,” she said, with a charming serenity of manner. “We shall not now have many days as fair as this one is.” She wore a gown of pale blue lawn, and had a great cluster of scarlet fuchsias in her hand. Behind the garden bench on which she sat, there was a hedge of fuchsias seven feet high and very thick. Her small dark head rested against its green and scarlet masses. The little bay tinkled and murmured among the pebbles at her feet. She had a book, but she was not reading. She had some crochet, but she was not working. Allan thought he had never seen her look so piquant and interesting: but she had no power to move him. The lonely, splendid beauty of the woman he had seen in his morning vision filled his heart. He sought Mary that hour only for Maggie’s sake.
While he was wondering how he could best introduce the conversation he desired, Mary broke the silence by a sudden question. “Cousin Allan, where were you this spring? I have often wanted to ask you.”
“Why did you not ask me? I wish you had, I should like to have talked on that subject. I was in the Fife fishing district.”
“Oh!”
“Why do you feel curious, Mary?”
“I have always thought there was something singular about that journey. What took you to Fife? I never heard you speak of Fife before.”