“So it might be. But better is death than a living misery. If Ian is what Jean Hay says he is, could we think of our child living with him? Impossible! Rahal, dear wife, whatever can be done I will do, and that with wisdom and loving kindness. Thy part is harder, it must be with our dear Thora.”
“That is so. And if there has to be parting, it will be almost impossible to spread the plaster as far as the sore.”
“There is the Great Physician–––”
“I know.”
“Tell her what I have said.”
“I will do that; but just yet, she is not minding much what any one says.”
However, on Saturday afternoon Thora left her bed and dressed herself in the gown she had prepared for her bridegroom’s arrival. The nervous shock had been severe and she looked woefully like, and yet unlike, herself. Her eyes were full of tears, she trembled, she could hardly support herself. If one should take a fresh green leaf and pass over it a hot iron, the change it made might represent the change in Thora. Jean Hay’s letter had been the hot iron passed over her. She had been told of her father’s decision, but she clung passionately to her faith in Ian and her claim on her father’s love and mercy.
“Father will do right,” she said, “and if he does, Ian will come home with him.”
The position was a cruel one to Conall Ragnor and he went to meet the packet with a heavy heart. Then Ian’s joyful face and his impatience 213 to land made it more so, and Ragnor found it impossible to connect wrong-doing with the open, handsome countenance of the youth. On the contrary, he found himself without intention declaring: