Rose's five hundred pounds had sunk down to fifty pounds, and then indeed she did begin to grow impatient for the return of her husband. Suppose the money should give out before he came back?
One day, while she was disturbing herself by these questions, she went out shopping as usual. When she had made her purchases she looked at her watch, and found that it had stopped. She was too ignorant to know what was the matter with it. She only knew that when she wound it up it would not go.
So she asked the dealer from whom she had bought her goods to direct her to a watchmaker.
The dealer gave her the address of a jeweller not far off.
She took her watch to "Messrs. North and Simms, Watchmakers and Jewellers," and asked an elderly man behind the counter, who happened to be one of the firm, if he could make her watch "gae" while she waited for it in the shop. And she detached it from its chain and handed it to him.
Mr. North received the rich, diamond-studded, gold repeater, and looked at the tawdry, ignorant, vain creature that presented it, with astonishment.
Then he examined the initials set in diamonds, and a change came over his face. He went to his desk, taking the watch with him. He drew out a small drawer, took from it a photograph, and compared it with the watch in his hand. Then he placed both together in the drawer and locked it and beckoned a young man from the opposite counter, scribbled a few words on a card and sent him out with it.
Rose, who had watched all these movements without the least suspicion of their meaning, now moved toward the jeweller and said:
"Aweel then, hae ye lookit at my watch and can ye na mak it ga?"
"The spring is broken, Miss, and it will take a little time to repair it. You can leave it with me, if you please," replied Mr. North.