Of all the anticipatory mourners, the most demonstrative was the sympathetic widow. She could barely control her emotion till she reached the drawing-room. There she broke down quite.
"Oh, Mary, Mary!" she sobbed.
They were alone together—Mary, commonly styled Miss Walkingshaw, and she. The exemplary spinster was likewise distressed, but in a calmer manner, as became a lady who had shared Heriot's Spartan upbringing.
"Whisht, whisht," said she. "He'll maybe get over it yet."
"No—no, he won't! That horrible beast will see that he doesn't!"
Miss Walkingshaw started nervously.
"You're not meaning the nurse?"
"I mean that—ugh!—that Andrew!"
A bright pink spot appeared in each of Miss Walkingshaw's cheeks. But the widow was too agitated to observe either them or the horrified stare with which she greeted this outburst.