“I fear I am almost a stranger, Miss Cary.”
“Mr Keith!” I did not feel him a stranger, but a very old friend indeed. But how ill he looked! I told him so, and he said he was wonderfully better,—quite well again,—with that old, sweet smile that he always had. My heart came up into my throat.
“Mr Keith, must you go into this danger?”
“If I fail to go where my Master calls me, how can I look for His presence and blessing to go with me? They who go with God are they with whom God goes.”
“Are you quite sure He has called you?”
“Quite sure.” His fine eyes lighted up.
“Have you thought—”
“Forgive my interruption. I have thought of everything. Miss Cary, you heard the vow which I took to God and Flora Drummond—never to lose sight of Angus, and to keep him true and safe. I have kept it so far as it lay in me, and I will keep it to the end. Come what may, I will be true to God and her.”
And looking up into his eyes, I saw—revealed to me as by a flash of lightning—what was Duncan Keith’s most precious thing.
“Now, Miss Caroline,” said Mr Raymond, “will you kindly go up with this lady,”—I fancied I heard the shortest possible sign of hesitation before the last two words,—“and she will be so good as to help you to assume the dress you are to wear.”