And when a sudden smile came, or a bright glance, or a murmur of song, she was telling herself that his time was nearly over; that he would soon be free again to go faraway over the sea, where, with kind help from Mr Hadden, he would begin a new life, and all would be well with him once more. Yes, and they might be together again.
But this could not be for a long time. She must not even try to see her brother. For Brownrig would be sure to have a watch set on him when he was free. And Brownrig—having the law on his side, as he had said in the hearing of many, on the night of the dark day on which her father was buried, raising his voice that she too might hear him, the door being locked and barred between them—Brownrig would come and she would be found, and then lost forever.
“For,” said Allison to herself, “I should have to drown myself then, and make an end of it all.”
She was standing on the edge of Burney’s Pot, near the mill-dam, when she said this to herself, and she shuddered as she looked down into the grey water.
“But it will never come to that! Oh! no, mother, it will never come to that. But to save myself from that man, even to end all would surely be no sin.”
But these thoughts did not haunt and terrify her now, as her doubts and dreads had done during the winter. She had no time for brooding over the past. Every hour of the day was more than full with all she had to do, and there were no long, dark evenings, when she had only her wheel and her own thoughts for company.
And there was Marjorie. Marjorie had something to do with her thoughts through all the hours of the day. She was always there to lift or to lay down, to carry here or to carry there, to speak to or to smile upon. And she grew sweeter and dearer every day. Above all, the time was hastening, and Willie would soon be free. That thought made all the days bright to Allison.
And so she grew, not light-hearted, but reasonable and patient in her thoughts of all that had befallen them, and, at most times, hopeful as to all that might lie before them.
The neighbours who, at her first coming among them, had been inclined to resent her gloom and her silence, were ready now, for the sake of her friendly looks, to forgive the silence which she kept still. Even in the kirk she was like another woman, they said, and didna seem to be miles awa’, or dreaming, or in fear.
Of this change Allison herself was conscious, when she thought about it. The minister’s words did not seem “just to go by” her as they used to do. She listened and took her portion with the rest of the folk, and was moved, or glad, or doubtful, or afraid, as they were, and thought about all she had heard afterward, as doubtless some of the rest did also.