Her childish ignorance and her primitive ideas aided only too well the impression of finality it gave. She put it beside all she had seen and heard of her husband’s love for Marion Glamis, and the miserable certainty was plain to her. She knew she was dying, and a quiet place to die in and a little love to help her over the hard hour seemed to be all she could expect now; the thought of Janet and Christina was her last hope. Thus it was that Janet found her trembling and weeping on her doorstep; thus it was she heard that pitiful plaint, “Take me in, Janet! Take me in to die!”
Never for one moment did Janet think of refusing this sad petition. She sat down beside her; she laid Sophy’s head against her broad loving breast; she looked with wondering pity at the small, shrunken face, so wan and ghostlike in the gray light. Then she called Christina, and Christina lifted Sophy easily in her arms, and carried her into her own house. “For we’ll give Braelands no occasion against either her or Andrew,” she said. Then they undressed the weary woman and made her a drink of strong tea; and after a little she began to talk in a quick, excited manner about her past life.
“I ran away from Braelands at the end of July,” she said. “I could not bear the life there another hour; I was treated before folk as if I had lost my senses; I was treated when I was alone as if I had no right in the house, and as if my being in it was a mortal wrong and misery to every one. And at the long last the woman there kept Archie’s letter from me, and I was wild at that, and sick and trembling all over; and I went to Aunt Griselda, and she took Madame’s part and would not let me stay with her till Archie came back to protect me. What was I to do? I thought of my cousins in Edinburgh and went there, and could not find them. Then there was only Ellen Montgomery in Glasgow, and I was ill and so tired; but I thought I could manage to reach her.”
“And didn’t you reach her, dearie?”
“No. I got worse and worse; and when I reached Glasgow I knew nothing at all, and they sent me to the hospital.”
“Oh, Sophy! Sophy!”
“Aye, they did. What else could be, Janet? No one knew who I was; I could not tell any one. They weren’t bad to me. I suffered, but they did what they could to help me. Such dreadful nights, Janet! Such long, awful days! Week after week in which I knew nothing but pain; I could not move myself. I could not write to any one, for my thoughts would not stay with me; and my sight went away, and I had hardly strength to live.”
“Try and forget it, Sophy, darling,” said Christina. “We will care for you now, and the sea-winds will blow health to you.”
She shook her head sadly. “Only the winds of heaven will ever blow health to me, Christina,” she answered; “I have had my death blow. I am going fast to them who have gone before me. I have seen my mother often, the last wee while. I knew it was my mother, though I do not remember her; she is waiting for her bit lassie. I shall not have to go alone; and His rod and staff will comfort me, I will fear no evil.”
They kissed and petted and tried to cheer her, and Janet begged her to sleep; but she was greatly excited and seemed bent on excusing and explaining what she had done. “For I want you to tell Archie everything, Janet,” she said. “I shall maybe never see him again; but you must take care, that he has not a wrong thought of me.”