There was an intenseness which was almost a note of anguish in Mrs. MacNairn’s answer, even though her voice was very low. I involuntarily turned my head to look at her, though of course it was too dark to see her face. I felt somehow as if her hands were wrung together in her lap.
“Oh!” she said, “if one only had some shadow of a proof that the mystery is only that WE cannot see, that WE cannot hear, though they are really quite near us, with us—the ones who seem to have gone away and whom we feel we cannot live without. If once we could be sure! There would be no Fear—there would be none!”
“Dearest”—he often called her “Dearest,” and his voice had a wonderful sound in the darkness; it was caress and strength, and it seemed to speak to her of things they knew which I did not—“we have vowed to each other that we WILL believe there is no reason for The Fear. It was a vow between us.”
“Yes! Yes!” she cried, breathlessly, “but sometimes, Hector—sometimes—”
“Miss Muircarrie does not feel it—”
“Please say ‘Ysobel’!” I broke in. “Please do.”
He went on as quietly as if he had not even paused:
“Ysobel told me the first night we met that it seemed as if she could not believe in it.”
“It never seems real to me at all,” I said. “Perhaps that is because I can never forget what Jean told me about my mother lying still upon her bed, and listening to some one calling her.” (I had told them Jean’s story a few days before.) “I knew it was my father; Jean knew, too.”
“How did you know?” Mrs. MacNairn’s voice was almost a whisper.