"Christina is doing better. Rathey is going to be man-of-law and private secretary to Sir Thomas, and they are to have the Wynton Dower House to live in, a handsome place in a big garden."
"Will you go with her, mother?"
"It is none of your business where I go. I would not ask a shelter from you, if I were going to the poor-house. I am going where I'll be rid of whimpering wives, and whining bairns, and fleeching, flattering folk, who want siller for their fine words. I'm done with the old, unhappy house. Sell it as soon as you like. It was an ill day when I stepped o'er its threshold."
"Then good-bye, mother. Say a kind word to me. We may meet no more in this world." He advanced towards her and put out his hand.
She rose and lifted her solitaire pack of cards—which was lying on the table by which she stood—and began shuffling them in her hands. "You ungrateful son of your mother Scotland and your mother Campbell!" she cried. "You traitor to every obligation due your family! You slave to a Methodist wife, go to your Papist-loving brother. California is a proper home for you. Dod! I am sick of the whole lot o' you—lads and lassies baith—Isabel is o'er much 'my lady' for any sensible body to thole; and Christina is aye sniffling and worrying about her bairns, or her silly, fiddling husband. I am sick, tired—heart and soul tired—o' the serpent brood o' you Campbells; and you may scatter yoursel's o'er the face o' the whole earth, for aught I care," and with these words she flung the cards in her hand far and wide, over the large room. She was in an incredible passion, and Robert put his hand on her arms, crying in terror and amazement:
"Mother! Mother! Mother! For God's sake I entreat——"
"Out o' my sight instanter!" she answered. "Scotland and Margaret Campbell is weel rid o' the like o' you." She shook off his restraining hands, and clasping her own behind her back, she went to a window and stood there looking far over the dull, wet street to some vision conjured up by her raging, scornful passion.
Robert again approached her. "I am going, mother," he said. "God forgive us both! Farewell!" and he once more offered her a pleading hand. She looked at it a moment, but kept her own resolutely clasped behind her, and finally with an imperative motion uttered one fierce word:
"Go!"
She was still at the window when he reached the sidewalk, and he raised his hat, and looked at her as he passed. But her gaze was intentionally far off, and if she saw this last act of entreaty, she was beyond the wish, or even the ability to notice it.