Here he paused, for here was a chance that was not likely to recur. He might say before two ladies what he could not say before one. If he could but rouse Florimel’s indignation! Then at any suitable time only a word more would be needful to direct it upon the villain. Clementina’s eyes continued fixed upon him. At length he spoke.
“I will try to make two pictures in your mind, my lady, if you will help me to paint them. In my mind they are not painted pictures. —A long sea-coast, my lady, and a stormy night;—the sea-horses rushing in from the north-east, and the snow-flakes beginning to fall. On the margin of the sea a long dune or sand-bank, and on the top of it, her head bare, and her thin cotton dress nearly torn from her by the wind, a young woman, worn and white, with an old faded tartan shawl tight about her shoulders, and the shape of a baby inside it, upon her arm.”
“Oh! she doesn’t mind the cold,” said Florimel. “When I was there, I didn’t mind it a bit.”
“She does not mind the cold,” answered Malcolm; “she is far too miserable for that.”
“But she has no business to take the baby out on such a night,” continued Florimel, carelessly critical. “You ought to have painted her by the fireside. They have all of them firesides to sit at. I have seen them through the windows many a time.”
“Shame or cruelty had driven her from it,” said Malcolm, “and there she was.”
“Do you mean you saw her yourself wandering about?” asked Clementina.
“Twenty times, my lady.”
Clementina was silent.
“Well, what comes next?” said Florimel.