“That is as it may be,” said Lady Carse. “It is a plan which may work two ways.”
“I do not see how it can work to any mischief,” Annie quietly declared. “I will leave you to consider it. If you think well of the plan, I shall be found ready with my thread. If the steward returns, it will be very early, that he may not lose the tide.”
As might be expected, Annie’s offer was accepted; for even Lady Carse’s prejudiced mind could point out no risk, while the success might be everything. There was something that touched her feelings in the patient care with which the widow sat, in the lamplight, winding the thread over and over the small slip of paper, so as to leave no speck visible, and to make a tight and secure ball.
The slip of paper contained a request that the reader would let Mr Hope, advocate, Edinburgh, know that Lady Carse was not dead, though pretended to be buried, but stolen away from Edinburgh, and now confined to the after-mentioned island of the Hebrides. Then followed Lady Carse’s signature and that of the minister, with the date.
“It will do! It will do!” exclaimed Mrs Ruthven. “My dear, dear Lady Carse—”
But Lady Carse turned away, and paced the room, “I don’t wonder, I am sure,” declared Mrs Ruthven, “I don’t wonder that you walk up and down. To think what may hang on this night— Now, take my arm,—let me support you.”
And she put her arm around the waist of her dear friend. But Lady Carse shook her off, turned weeping to Annie, and sobbed out, “If you save me— If this is all sincere in you, and—”
“Sincere!” exclaimed Annie, in such surprise that she almost dropped the ball.
“O yes, yes; it is all right, and you are an angel to me. I—”
“What an amiable creature she is!” said Mrs Ruthven to her husband, gazing on Lady Carse. “What noble impulses she has!”