There was more summing up and going back and forth, but the tension of the trial was over for all except me and one other—one wide-eyed little creature, sitting in her black gown, with Dickenson beside her, on the other side of the court-room; a slender girlish figure before whom my soul was on its knees.
I imagined her work, after she asked me to pray for her, upon that awful night. I thought of fifty things on the second, as it seemed. Visions came to me of Nancy dipping her head in the basin of water, Nancy by the mail-bag in the early dawning before the officers had come, and to that "Nancy made it just like Jock's," there came, with terror to my soul, another jumble of words—"Accessory after the fact."
I knew that the jury consulted but a few minutes before the whole of Edinburgh was shaking hands with Danvers, assuring him of their never-shaken trust in his innocence, saw Pitcairn putting his papers into the black-leather case, was conscious that Billy Deuceace was laughing as he talked to some women, with his hand on Danvers's shoulder. I say that I was aware of these things, but so remotely that they seemed part of a dream, for my real thought was to get to Nancy, to take her away, to shield her from I know not what; and leaving the Carmichael party, I made my way to the place where she was awaiting the carriage.
As we stood together near the doorway, Sandy and Danvers, with their friends, passed us on their way from the court-room, and my heart bled as I saw the look Nancy gave them, the look of pleading and affection, which Sandy avoided by talking to the one beside him; but Danvers, and none could blame him, considering his belief that she had done her utmost to get him hanged, looked full at her, his eyes showing scorn of her. I felt the slight body quiver, saw her sway back and forth for a little, and then, with a sob like a wounded child, she lost consciousness entirely. Hugh Pitcairn stayed by her until she was enough recovered for me to put her in the coach, and rode back to Stair with us, watching her all the time with an expression of alarm and tenderness, which drew him very near to me.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE MISTS ALL CLEARED AWAY
On toward midnight I was awakened by Dickenson clamoring at my door, telling me that Nancy lay delirious, with a high fever, calling for me. Making what haste I could, I reached the poor child, to find her tossing from one side of the bed to the other, uttering hoarse cries, with neither intelligence in her glance nor recognition of either my presence or my voice. McMurtrie's attitude, after his examination, drove me wild with fear. "It's like to be a long case," he said. "I want ye to get Dr. Cameron from Glasgow. I'll stay by ye," he added; "I'll just move into the house, for, under God, it's not my intention to let Nancy Stair leave us yet."
Weeks and weeks went by, during which it seemed as though I neither slept nor ate, listening to the moaning, or, what was far worse, broken talk of her work, of her cares, scraps of forgotten rhymes, bits of Latin verse, law references cited letter for letter, until I needed the doctor myself, who threatened to put me from the house unless I showed a more reasonable behavior.
On in the third week of Nancy's fever I heard that Danvers's wife was ill, but this was nature, and I gave no more thought to the matter. On the afternoon of the day on which the news was brought me the Arran folks sent again to know if Dr. McMurtrie could be spared them, and we sent him over immediately. On his return I asked him, in a perfunctory way, how he had found things, and he returned an evasive answer; but upon my insisting for the truth, he told me that Isabel had given birth to a child the night before, but that it had died before morning, and that she herself was in a most desperate state.