That night she could not move, she had done all that it was possible for her to do that day; but on the morrow she would be rested and she might trust herself to the noise and bustle of the street and railway. The day was well on before she found strength to do this; but at length she found herself on the direct road to Largo, though she could hardly tell how it had been managed. As she approached the long chain of Fife fishing-villages, she bought the newspaper most widely read in them; and, to her terror and shame, found the same warning to honest folk against her. She was heartsick. With this barrier between Archie and herself, how could she go to Braelands? How could she face Madame? What mockery would be made of her explanations? No, she must see Archie alone. She must tell him the whole truth, somewhere beyond Madame’s contradiction and influence. Whom should she go to? Her aunt Kilgour had turned her away, even before this disgrace. Her cousin Isobel’s husband had asked her not to come to his house and make loss and trouble for him. If she went direct to Braelands, and Archie happened to be out of the house, Madame would say such things of her before every one as could never be unsaid. If she went to a hotel, she would be known, and looked at, and whispered about, and maybe slighted. What must she do? Where could she see her husband best? She was at her wit’s end. She was almost at the end of her physical strength and consciousness. And in this condition, two men behind her began to talk to the rustle of their turning newspapers.
“This is a queer-like thing about Braelands and his wife,” said one.
“It is a very bad thing. If the wife has gane awa’, she has been driven awa’ by bad usage. There is an old woman at Braelands that is as evil-hearted as if she had slipped out o’ hell for a few years. Traill’s girl was good and bonnie; she was too good, or she would have held her ain side better.”
“That may be; but there is a reason deeper than that. The man is wanting to marry the Glamis girl. He has already began a suit for divorce, I hear. Man, man, there is always a woman at the bottom of every sin and trouble!”
Then they began to speak of the crops and the shooting, and Sophy listened in vain for more intelligence. But she had heard enough. Her soul cried out against the hurry and shame of the steps taken in the matter. “So cruel as Archie is!” she sighed. “He might have looked for me! He might have found me even in that awful hospital! He ought to have done so, and taken me away and nursed me himself! If he had loved me! If he had loved me, he would have done these things!”. Despair chilled her very blood. She had a thought of going to Braelands, even if she died on its threshold; and then suddenly she remembered Janet Binnie.
As Janet’s name came to her mind, the train stopped at Largo, and she slipped out among the hurrying crowd and took the shortest road to Pittendurie. It was then nearly dark, and the evening quite chill and damp; but there was now a decisive end before the dying woman. “She must reach Janet Binnie, and then leave all to her. She would bring Archie to her side. She would be sufficient for Madame. If this only could be managed while she had strength to speak, to explain, to put herself right in Archie’s eyes, then she would be willing and glad to die.” Step by step, she stumbled forward, full of unutterable anguish of heart, and tortured at every movement by an inability to get breath enough to carry her forward.
At last, at last, she came in sight of Janet’s cottage. The cliff terrified her; but she must get up it, somehow. And as she painfully made step after step, a light shone through the open door and seemed to give her strength and welcome. Janet had been spending the evening with her daughter, and had sat with her until near her bedtime. She was doing her last household duties, and the last of all was to close the house-door. When she went to do this, a little figure crouched on the door-step, two weak hands clasped her round the knees, and the very shadow of a thin, pitiful voice sobbed:—
“Janet! Take me in, Janet! Take me in to die! I’ll not trouble you long—it is most over, Janet!”