“Will he be coming to Edinburgh? Can I see him?”
“Certainly. I expect my husband on Saturday evening. Come and call on Sunday afternoon, and I will make some excuse to send Dugald round to your rooms afterwards. Then you can tell him all about his home people. But now tell me about the rest of your journey.”
Ralph told the whole tale, and there were tears in his companion’s eyes as he described the dire struggle of the last day of his wanderings, and his final collapse in the Pass of Leny.
“And it was there Hugh Macneillie found you?” she said tremulously.
“Yes, he is fond of going up and down that path by the river, he says it is good practice to rehearse a part in that roar of many waters. I dreamt I was back again in the theatre with Evereld, then I heard footsteps, and looked up to see his face. You can’t think what a contrast it was to the faces I had seen just before in the road, with their cruel contemptuous stare; it was like looking up into the face of the Christ.”
By the time they had returned from Roslin, Christine had heard all that there was to be heard, with the exception of course of the Richmond Park incident, and she was able fully to realise the sort of life which her old lover was living. She did not presume to pity Hugh Macneillie. She knew indeed that, compared with her lot, his was one to be envied; but she felt intuitively that he would never recover from the wound she had dealt him, and knew that she had deliberately robbed him of all that a man most values. Her heart was very sore that night, and Ralph, now that he knew more of her, understood with how weary an effort she laughed and talked in the green room. He longed to be able to serve her, but there was of course little he could do, beyond showing Charlie the sort of kindness which a small boy best appreciates.
It was with some trepidation that, on the Sunday afternoon at the close of her engagement, he called to take leave of her. Other visitors were in the room. She just introduced him to Sir Roderick—a tall, grey-haired, and decidedly good-looking man, and then left him to make his way as usual to Charlie’s couch.
The child greeted him with delight and eagerly showed him a Kodak which Christine had just given him, and with which he was longing to take snap-shots at the people in Prince’s Street. “But I mustn’t do it, Sir Roderick says, because of the fourth commandment and the Scotch being so particular. Now do you really think that the fourth commandment was meant to forbid Kodaks on Sunday?”
“Well no,” said Ralph smiling. “I don’t think it has much to do with photography or with our Sunday.”
“And you see,” continued the child eagerly, “even if we are not to do any manner of work—and of course, every one really does a good deal—you can’t possibly call it work to take a snap-shot. Why it says, you know, in the advertisement, that it’s no labour at all. ‘You press the button, we do all the rest,’ and one wouldn’t ask them to do the developing to-day. It’s really not so bad as Sir Roderick’s ringing the bell as he’s doing now, for when he rings twice like that, Dugald has to come hurrying upstairs like lightning, and I know he has had hardly any time for his dinner.”