All that summer we lived in the little house, and toward autumn there were reasons why my wife should not be troubled with new cares. Sandy came to see us frequently; whiles I ran up to Edinburgh to tend to needful matters. One day in March, because of some wish my dear had half expressed, I went to town to get some of the jewels with which the Ladies Stair had adorned themselves in days gone by. I had promised a short absence, but there was a matter of some fastenings to be mended at the goldsmith's, and my stay was three days. Riding backward as fast as a postboy, I came on the porch suddenly to find a weeper, as if one were dead, hanging upon the knocker. Dropping the box and riding-whip I pushed the door ajar with a great shove and entered, upon Dame Dickenson, who was coming out of her room, from which place I heard a faint cry. Her eyes were red with weeping; she looked scared and went white at the sight of me, and with a horrid presentiment of trouble, I cried on the instant, in a voice which I heard myself as coming from some other:
"Where is she?"
"Oh, my lord," she said, and her voice broke and went off into a shriek, "did ye no meet wi' Mr. Carmichael? He's gone for ye."
"I met nobody," I cried, and again there was a tiny wail as of a new-born babe from the next room.
"Oh, my lord!" she cried again, springing forward and putting herself between me and the doorway which I made to enter. "Ask God for strength to bear what's been sent ye. Say a prayer, my lord. Ask Him to let ye remember the baby that's come to you. Pray, O my lord," she cried; "prepare yourself."
I pushed her from me and threw the door wide open.
There was a body in the room laid out for burial, with candles burning at the head and foot—a slim, young, girlish body; and as Father Pierre, who was kneeling by it, turned his face toward mine I knew that Marian, because of me, had gone forever. Something seemed to strike me at the back of the head and a black vapor fell before my eyes and stopped my breath—I knew that Father Pierre caught me in his arms, a merciful unconsciousness seized me, and everything faded away.
When I came to myself I was in my own sleeping-room at Stair, a night-light burning on the table, and some one on the other side of the screen sat reading by the fire. I saw the top of the head over the chair-rail, and knew it was Sandy Carmichael's. Five weeks longer I lay there, and on toward midsummer, my fever having lasted four months, Sandy proposed I should start as soon as I was able and tour the world. It had been an old dream of mine, but with little taste for life, I set sail from Glasgow for Gibraltar some time in August, 1769, to visit other lands and see new lives with old sorrows like my own.