"It was just a daft prank," said he to Belle, who leant over him like some wild fierce creature. "It was just a mad ploy, mother."
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SHAMELESS LASS.
I left Bryde sleeping at last and restless, with Belle wide-eyed by his bedside, and traked down to the big house very bitter at heart against Hugh, for the quarrel had been of his seeking; and when I came under the rowan-trees and past the moss-covered stone horse-trough, the grey day was coming in. And at the little window of Margaret's room I saw a white face peering, and there in a bare stone-flagged lobby she came to me, a stricken white thing, and dumb. She had no words at all, but stood gazing at my face, her hands twisting and twisting, and a strange moving in her white throat.
"Come, my lass," said I, and took her up and carried her to my room, where there was still a glow of red in the wide fireplace, and I kicked the charred wood together, and threw dry spills on that and made a blaze, and set her in my chair in the glow of it, for she was stiff with cold, being but half clothed or maybe less. Then I brought from an aumery some French spirit, and she took a little, shivering and making faces, but it lifted the cold from her heart. Yet in her eyes was a dreadful look, as of one who had gazed all night over bottomless chasms of nameless fear.
"And now, Mistress Margaret McBride," said I in as blithe a voice as I could be mustering, "why am I to be finding you in cold lobbies, and carrying you to my chamber like the ogre?"
At that came the saddest little smile over her face, and all her body seemed to relax.
"Tell me," said she, "there would not be laughing in your voice and him—away," and even then I was thinking she would be afraid to say that grim word.
"Bryde will have a sned from a hanger," said I, making light of it.
"You will have seen deeper in a turnip, and I left him sleeping."
"The dear," said she—"the dear," and then looking at me, "Oh, Hamish,
Hamish, be good to me; I will not can help it."