A very serious addition to the cares I felt on behalf of my old pupil came upon me in the shape of a rumour, communicated by Ferguson in a mysterious manner, that a strange figure had been seen by the keepers in the course of the past week, wandering about the hills in the daytime and hovering in the vicinity of the Hall towards evening. I spoke with one of the men who had seen him, and from what he said I could have no doubt that the wanderer was the unlucky Ellmer who, as I found by sending off a telegram to the lunatic asylum where he had been for some time confined, had been missing for four days and was supposed to be dangerous. I at once gave orders for a search to be made for him, being much alarmed by the possibility of his presenting himself suddenly to either of the two poor ladies, who were not even aware of his condition. The first day's scouring of the hills and of the forest proved fruitless, however, while Babiole was much surprised at the pertinacity with which I insisted that the wind was too keen for her to go out. On the second day I think she began to have suspicions that something was being kept from her, for on my suggesting that she had better stay indoors again, as the keepers were out shooting very near the Hall, she gave me a shy apprehensive glance, but made no remonstrance. As I started to 'make a round with the keeper,' as I truly told her, though I did not explain with what object, she came to the door with me, making a beautiful picture under the ivy of the portico, her white throat rising out of her dark gown like a lily, and the pink colour which the mountain air had brought back again flushing and fading in her face.
'Well,' said I, looking at her with a great yearning over the fairness and brightness which were so soon to disappear from my sight, to be swallowed up in the fogs and the fever of London life, 'Well, I shall call at the post-office, and see if I can't charm out of the post-mistress's fingers a letter from Fabian.'
'Ah, you want to get rid of us!' said she, half smiling, half reproachful.
'No-o,' said I, looking down at my gaiters, 'Not so particularly.'
Then we neither of us said any more, but stood without looking at each other. I don't know what she was thinking about, but I know that I began to grow blind and deaf even to the sight of her and the sound of the tapping of her little foot upon the step; the roar of the rain-swollen Muick in the valley below seemed to have come suddenly nearer, louder, to be thundering close to my ears, raising to tempest height the passionate excitement within me, and shrieking out forebodings of the desolation which would fall upon me when my poor witch should have fled away. I was thankful to be brought back to commonplace by the shrill tones of Mrs. Ellmer, who had followed her daughter to the doorstep, and who encouraged me with much banter about my shooting powers as I set off.
The gillie who accompanied me was a long, lank, weedy young Highlander, silent and shrewd, who was already a valuable servant, and who promised to develop into a fine specimen of stalwart Gaelic humanity before many years were over. We made the circuit of that part of the forest near the Hall which had been appointed our beat for the day, but failed to find any trace of the fugitive. Jock was not surprised at this.
'A mon wi' a bee in's bonnet's nae sa daft but a' can mak' the canny ones look saft if a' will,' said he with a wise look.
And his opinion, which I apprehensively shared, was that the fugitive would not be secured until he had given us some trouble.
It was a cold and gloomy day. The chilling penetrating Scotch mist shrouded the whole landscape with a mournful gray veil, and gave place, as the day wore on and the leaden clouds grew heavier, to a thin but steady snow-fall. I left Jock, as the time drew near for the arrival of the train that brought the London letters, to return to the Hall without me, and got to Ballater post-office just as the mail-bag was being carried across from the little station, which is just opposite. In a few minutes I had got my papers, and a letter for Babiole in her husband's handwriting. The snow was falling faster by this time, and already drifting before the rising wind into little heaps and ridges by the wayside and on the exposed stretch of somewhat bare and barren land which lies between Ballater and the winding Dee. I walked back at a quick pace, scanning the small snow-drifts narrowly, measuring with my eyes the progress the soft white covering was making, and wondering with the foolish heart-quiver and miracle-hunger of a school-boy on the last day of the holidays, whether that snow-fall would have the courage and strength of mind to go on bravely as it had begun, and snow us up! If only the train would stop running—it did sometimes in the depths of a severe winter—and cut off all possibility of my witch being taken away from me for another month. I had worshipped her so loyally, I had been so 'good,' as she used to say—I couldn't resist giving myself this little pat on the back—that surely Providence might trust me with my wistful but well-conducted happiness a little longer. And all the time I knew that my solicitous questionings of sky and snow were futile and foolish, that I was carrying the death-warrant of my dangerous felicity in my pocket, and that if I had a spark of sense or manliness left in my wool-gathering old head, I ought to be heartily glad of it.
The notion of the death-warrant disturbed me, however, and when I burst into the drawing room where Mrs. Ellmer was darning a handsome old tapestry curtain, and looking, with her worn delicate face, pink with interest, rather pretty over it, I felt nervous as I asked for Babiole. She entered behind me before the question was out of my mouth, and I put the letter into her hands without another word, and retreated to one of the windows while she opened and read it. She was moved too, and her little fingers shook as they tore the envelope. I felt so guiltily anxious to know whether she was pleased that I was afraid if I glanced in her direction she would look up suddenly and detect my meanness. So I looked out of the window and watched the snow collecting on the branches of the firs outside, while Mrs. Ellmer, without pausing in her work, wondered volubly whether Fabian wasn't ashamed of himself for having left his wife so long without a letter, and would like to know what he had got to say for himself now he had written. Then suddenly the mother gave a little piercing cry, and I, turning at once, saw that Babiole, standing on the same spot where I had seen her last, and holding her husband's letter tightly clenched in her hands, seemed to have changed in a moment from a young, sweet, and beautiful woman into a livid and haggard old one. She had lost all command of the muscles of her face, and while her eyes, from which the dewy blue had faded, stared out before her in a meaningless gaze, the pallid lips of her open mouth twitched convulsively, although she did not attempt to utter a word.