A hopeless look came into his eyes as he listened to her words, for he knew that Mysie could never consent to his proposal. Frail as she was, and torn by her wish to agree, yet he knew she meant it, when she said no.
"Where do you live, Mysie?" he enquired at last, thinking to find some way of helping her. "Wad you gie me your address, so that I'll ken where you bide?"
"No, I dinna want to tell you, Rob. You'd better gang awa' noo. Mrs. Ramsay will soon be comin' for me. Gang awa' an' leave me. I want to be a wee while by mysel'. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!"
Robert stole away on tiptoe, as if he were afraid longer to intrude upon her grief—his mind in a whirl, and his heart heavy with sorrow. He returned to the Conference to find that the debate was in full swing, and that Davie Donaldson, was laying about him in vigorous style, denouncing the leaders for recommending the terms to the men, and telling them that the "wee chocolate-moothed Chancellor had again diddled them."
But he felt no interest in Davie's denunciation, and could not smile at his picturesque language. His mind would revert to the gardens in Princes Street, and he saw the thin white figure on the seat, the picture of hopeless misery, her frail form torn with sobs; and heard the wail in her voice as she moaned, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!"
Some of the young delegates wondered why Sinclair remained silent in such an important debate. They had succeeded in raising a question which at any other time would have brought him to his feet; but he sat impassive and silent, and above all the clash and glamor, above the applause and the interruptions, above all the witty sallies which brought unexpected laughter, he saw only the thin, white lonely figure—the dejected and outcast, the poor plaything of fate, and heard the heart-breaking cry, "Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!" and in every syllable there was a stab of pain.
The Conference ended, and the delegates made homeward. The terms had been agreed to, so far as Scotland was concerned, and all pointed to peace.
"You didna speak the day, Sinclair, and I fairly thocht you wad hae been into the fecht," said one delegate to Robert, as the train moved away from the station.
"No, I wasna feelin' up to the mark," he returned, in a tone that hinted that he did not want to be troubled, and he sat back in his corner in silence. In the gray quick gloaming the moors and the hills, viewed from the train, seemed to him a country without hope. There was sadness in it, and pain, and the gray wintry sky brooded of sorrows to come.
Occasionally a few sheep would start away from where they had been grazing close to the railway, startled by the noise of the train. Thin wisps of gray ragged clouds hung low, as if softly descending upon the hills, in fateful sinister storms, and a fiery flash of yellow left a strip of anger on the western horizon, where the sun had gone down a short time ago.