W3 waited nine days for the coming of the Rufus Smith. During that time an episode occurred as a result of which I sat one morning by myself on the rocks beside the sloop, on which such ardent hopes had been centered, only like the derelict itself to be wrecked at last. It was a lonely spot and I wanted to be alone. I felt abused, and sad, and sore. I realized that I was destined to do nothing but harm in this world, and to hurt people I was fond of, and be misunderstood by every one, and to live on—if I wasn't lucky enough to meet with a premature and sudden end—into a sour, lonely, crabbed old age, when I would wish to goodness I had married anybody, and might even finish by applying to a Matrimonial Agency.
As I sat nursing these melancholy thoughts I heard a footstep. I did not look up—for I knew the footstep. I should have known it if it had trodden over my grave.
"I take it you are not wanting company, you have come so far out of the way of it," said Dugald Shaw.
Still I did not look up.
"Nobody seemed to want me," I remarked sulkily, after a pause. He made no reply, but seated himself upon the rocks. For a little there was silence.
"Virginia," he said abruptly, "I'm thinking you have hurt the lad."
"Oh," I burst out, "that is all you think of—the lad, the lad!
How about me? Don't you suppose it hurt me too?"
"No," he made deliberate answer. "I was not sure of that. I thought maybe you liked having men at your feet."
"Liked it? Liked to wound Cuthbert—Cuthbert? Oh, if only it had not happened, if we could have gone on being friends! It was all my fault for going with him into the cave. It was after you had buried the skeleton, and I wanted to see poor Peter's resting-place. And we spoke of Helen, and it was all frightfully melancholy and tender, and all at once he—he said it. And I meant he never should!" In the soreness of my heart I began to weep.
"There, lassie, there, don't cry!" he said gently. "The boy didn't speak of it, of course. But I knew how it must be. It has hit him hard, I am afraid."