“As to Mistress Allison’s being ready to take up the guiding of Brownrig’s fine house when he is done with it, I cannot make myself believe it beforehand. She has no such thought as that, or I am greatly mistaken. By all means, do you what may be done to find this nephew of her husband’s.”
“Is it that you are thinking she will refuse to go with Brownrig to Blackhills?”
“I cannot say. I am to speak to her to-morrow. If he is to go, it must be soon.”
“She’ll go,” said Mr Rainy.
“Yes, I think she may go,” said the doctor; but though they agreed, or seemed to agree, their thoughts about the matter were as different as could well be.
The next day Doctor Fleming stood long by the bed, looking on the face of the sleeper. It had changed greatly since the sick man lay down there. He had grown thin and pale, and all traces of the self-indulgence which had so injured him, had passed away. He looked haggard and wan—the face was the face of an old man. But even so, it was a better face, and pleasanter to look on, than it had ever been in his time of health.
“A spoiled life!” the doctor was saying to himself. “With a face and a head like that, he ought to have been a wiser and better man. I need not disturb him to-day,” said he to Allison, as he turned to go.
He beckoned to her when he reached the door.
“Mistress Allison, answer truly the question I am going to put to you. Will it be more than you are able to bear, to go with him to his home, and wait there for the end?”
“Surely, I am able. I never meant to go till lately. But I could never forsake him now. Oh! yes, I will be ready to go, when you shall say the time is come.”