“Nay, nay!” she cried reproachfully. “Dinna’ say that, laddie, not alone, not alone,” and she looked compassionately at the door of the kitchen where Jean sat in patient misery holding her bairn to her aching heart. At that moment Gilbert softly opened the door and told them that they would have to start at once, that the storm would not let up and that they must catch the boat at Greenock that night.
“Ye had better say good-by, noo,” and he closed the door quietly behind him.
They looked at each other, too dazed for words. Then she started to rise to her feet, but he clasped her hands tightly, though she did not feel the pain, and pressed her into the seat again.
“Not yet, not yet, Mary!” he gasped. “I canna’ let ye go just yet. ’Tis like tearing my heart out by its roots.”
“Ye mustna’ greet so, laddie,” said Mary, frightened by the vehemence of his sorrow.
“’Tis all my fault,” he moaned, “all thro’ my sinful weakness that ye are made to suffer noo, all my fault.”
She put her fingers on his lips. “Sh! dearie!” she remonstrated softly. “Dinna’ blame yoursel’. If we suffer noo, we must na’ forget how happy we have been, and we were happy, weren’t we, laddie?” and she smiled in fond reminiscence, then continued a trifle unsteadily, “An—an hour’s happiness is worth a year of pain, for when we get sad an’ lonely, we can live it all over again, canna’ we?” She paused and sighed pathetically. “Only it—it isna’ real, is it, laddie?” A sudden break in her voice caused her to put her hand to her throat and look away with quivering lips. Then she went on in plaintive, pleading gentleness, “Ye will sometimes think of me—way up—in the Highlands, won’t ye, dearie? It willna’ wrong—Jean, for—soon your Mary will be—in Heaven, in her castle grand.”
The thunder rolled along the sky in angry reverberating echoes, stilling the low voice, while frequent flashes of lightning leaped out like knives suddenly drawn from dark sheaths—yet toward the north over Greenock the sky was clearing, and streaks and beams of gold fell from the hidden sun, with a soothing promise of a clear and radiant sunset. Mary’s face brightened as she watched the sunbeams struggling through the lightened clouds, and she went on dreamily, in the prolonged lull of the storm:
“My home there will be so fine, much finer than the castle in Edinburgh.” She smiled tenderly and let her hand slip down from his head to his heaving shoulder, where it rested in loving quiet. “How happy I was that night,” she mused; “an’ the sweet gown was so pretty I—hated to take it off, but it wasna’ mine.” She paused with quivering lips. “But—but—I was going to buy one the next day for my own, wasna’ I? A white one—all smooth and soft and shiny—for—for my wedding gown.” Her voice died away in a hushed, mournful quaver.
“Don’t, don’t, Mary!” sobbed Robert unrestrainedly. “I canna’ bear to think of that noo, noo when I maun give ye up forever.” He stroked her face and covered her pale, thin, toil-worn hands with heart-breaking kisses. Presently he grew calmer. “I shall never forget that night, Mary, that night with its pleasures and pain,” he went on with dreamy pathos. “It is ever in my thoughts; e’en in my dreams your dear bonnie face haunts me with its sweet, pathetic smile, and your tender lips seem to say, ‘laddie, ye were not true to your vows, ye have broken my heart.’” She gave a little cry of pain.