There was nothing in the parting to strengthen her suspicions. Maggie was indeed white and silent, but Allan went almost hurriedly away: as if he were weary of the circumstances surrounding him. David thought him cool and cross, and was pained by the mood; but Maggie knew the meaning of the worried, slightly haughty manner; for in one quick glance, he had made her understand how bitter it was to leave her in her worse than loneliness; and how painful in his present temper was the vulgar effusiveness of Janet Caird’s thanks and noisy farewells.
An hour upon the sea cured him. “David,” he said, “I was very cross. I did not like that woman in your home. She spoils my memory of it.”
“She is my fayther’s sister, sir.”
“Forgive me, David. Let us speak of other things. You have found comfortable lodgings, I hope?”
“Ay, sir. Willie Buchan’s third cousin married a Glasgow baker, who has a gude place in the Candleriggs Street. That is close by the High Street and vera convenient as to locality. The charges also are sma’. I hae a comfortable room and my bite and sup for ten shillings weekly.”
This introduced a subject which opened up endlessly to David, and Allan was glad to let him talk; for thought is sweet to the lover, thought of the beloved under any circumstances. No other shadow darkened a friendship that had been so evenly cloudless, and David and Allan parted full of mutual good will and regard, although the hopes and aims of each were so widely different.
Allan went directly to his father’s office, but John Campbell had gone to a board meeting, and so he took the next boat for Meriton. Evidently Archibald had not been warned that day by any peculiar “feeling” of his arrival. There was no conveyance of any kind waiting for him; but as the distance was only two very pleasant miles, Allan did not much regret the prospect of having to walk them.
The woods adjoining the road were the Campbells’ property, he leaped the wall, and took the footpath through them. How silent it was under the pines! the more so because of that vague stir in the air among them. What nameless perfumes! emanations from the resinous earth, from the old trunks, from the foliage. What delightful mysteries in their nooks! Bird twitterings intimate and charming; chirpings of the mothers to their newly fledged young; little cries of joy, and counsel, and innocent surprises! A large, cool, calm hand was laid upon his heart, the hand of nature; he sauntered slowly in the aromatic air, he dreamed impossible dreams of bliss, and with the faith of youth believed in them. Good! When we have weaned youth from dreams, from poetry, from enthusiasms, and made it thoroughly sensible, and material, what kind of race will remain to the world?
And alas! All happy dreams are short enough. Allan’s was dissipated by a sound of suppressed weeping. He looked cautiously around, and on the clean, brown ground beneath the pines, a little in advance of him, he saw a woman sitting. Her back was against the trunk of a large tree, her face was turned quite away from him, but he knew it was Mary Campbell. And softly and hurriedly he retraced his own steps for some distance, and then he found the wall, and leaped into the highway, and walked home by it; thoroughly awake and disenchanted.
He did not meet Mary until the dinner hour. She was then elegantly dressed, her face clear and bright, her manner, as it always was, gentle and yet cheerful.