Allison let her shawl slip from her shoulders and untied the strings of her black bonnet.
“Take it off,” said Mrs Esselmont, as Allison hesitated.
Her hair had grown long by this time and was gathered in a knot at the back of her head, but little rings and wavy locks escaped here and there—brown, with a touch of gold in them—and without the disguise of the big, black bonnet, or of the full bordered mutch, a very different Allison was revealed to Mrs Esselmont.
“A beautiful woman,” she said to herself, “and with something in her face better than beauty. She can have done nothing of which she need be ashamed.”
Aloud she said:
“Allison, since you have said so much, if you think you can trust me, you should, perhaps, tell me all.”
“Oh! I can trust you! But afterward folk might say that you did wrong to take me with you, knowing my story. And if I tell you I would need to tell Mr and Mrs Hume as well, since they are to trust me with their child. And though you might be out of the reach of any trouble because of taking my part, they might not, and their good might be evil spoken of on my account, and that would be a bad requital for all their kindness.”
“And have you spoken to no one, Allison? Is there no one who is aware of what has befallen you?”
Allison grew red and then pale. It was the last question that she answered.
“It was in our parish that Saunners Crombie buried his wife. One night he came into the manse kitchen, and he told me that he had seen my name on a new headstone, ‘John Bain and Allison his wife’—the names of my father and mother. And he had some words with one who had known me all my life. But I never answered him a word. And whether he was trying me, or warning me, or whether he spoke by chance, I cannot say. I would like to win away from this place, for a great fear has been upon me since then. I might be sought for here. But I would never go back. I would rather die,” repeated Allison, and the look that came over her face gave emphasis to her words.