“And what else?”
“Now and then I may want something else; but I get chiefly oil—as what I want most.”
The widow saw that Lady Carse was not attending to what she said, and was merely making an opening for what she herself wanted to utter: so Annie said no more of her work and its payment, but waited.
“This is a dreadful place,” the lady burst out. “Nobody can live here.”
“I have heard there are kindlier places to live in,” the widow replied. “This island must appear rather bare to people who come from the south,—as I partly remember myself.”
“Where did you come from? Do you know where I come from? Do you know who I am?” cried the lady.
“I came from Dumfries. I have not heard where you lived, my lady. I was told by Macdonald that you came by Sir Alexander Macdonald’s orders, to live here henceforward.”
“I will not live here henceforward. I would sooner die.”
The widow looked surprised. In answer to that look Lady Carse said, “Ah! you do not know who I am, nor what brought me here, or you would see that I cannot live here, and why I would rather die.—Why do not you speak? Why do you not ask me what I have suffered?”
“I should not think of it, my lady. Those who have suffered are slow to speak of their heart pain, and would be ashamed before God to say how much oftener they would rather have died.”