“And have you never seen him nor heard from him since then?” asked Mrs Beaton.
“I wrote one letter to him and he wrote one to me. That was at the first. I wrote to him to tell him what I was going to do, and to warn him what he must do when his time was over. I dared not write again, for fear that—and even now I dare not go to him. When we meet it must be on the other side of the sea. But I must hear from him before then. He wasna an ill lad, though ye might think it from what I have told you. He was only foolish and ill advised.
“And think of him all these long days and months alone with his anger and his shame—him that had ay had a free life in the fields and on the hills. And there is no one to speak a kind word to him when he comes out of that weary place—”
“And you would like my John to go and see him?” said Mrs Beaton.
“Oh! if he only would! Think of him alone, without a friend! And he is easily led either for good or ill.”
“Is it likely that he would listen to anything that an utter stranger would say to him?” said John.
He spoke coldly, as his mother noticed with pain. Allison did not notice it.
“But you would not seem like a stranger to him if you came from me. And anyway, ye wouldna be strangers long. You would like Willie, or you would be the first one who didna, all his life. And oh! he needs one wise, and strong, and good like you. The very touch of your hand would give him hope, and would keep him from losing heart—and, it might be, from losing himself—”
She stood, bending slightly toward him, her eyes, which in spite of his will and his reason had all these months haunted him by night and by day, looking into his. She stood in utter unconsciousness of herself or of him, save as one whose strength might help the weakness of another who was in sore need. No spoken words could have made clearer to him that he—John Beaton—was not in all her thoughts, save as a possible friend to the unknown criminal, who, doubtless, had well deserved his fate.
And to think of the life which lay before this woman, with this weak fool to share it—a woman among ten thousand!