“Say nothing, Robin,” said she, when they rose to go out together. “She will be the better for her tears, or rather for that which made them flow.”
To herself Robin’s mother said:
“She will surely speak now, and open her heart to comfort.”
She had a while to wait for that, but a change came over Allison as the summer days went on. She was restless sometimes, and anxious and afraid. She had an air of expectation as though she were waiting for something, and sometimes she had the look of one eager to be up and away.
One night when Mrs Hume went up to see her little daughter in her bed, she found Allison writing. She said nothing to her and did not seem to see, and waited in expectation of hearing more. But she never did.
For Allison’s courage failed her and the letter was never sent. It was written to Dr Fleming, who had been kind to her in the infirmary, and it told him of her brother who was in prison, and asked him to visit him and to be kind to him, as he had been to her. But after it was written she was afraid to send it.
No. She must wait and have patience. Willie must go away alone over the sea, as they had agreed together in the only letters that had passed between them since he was a prisoner. Mr Hadden would befriend him as he had promised, and she would follow him when the right time came.
“But it is ill waiting,” said Allison to herself. “It is ill waiting.”
In those days many a word came to her as she sat in the kirk or in the parlour at worship-time, which set her thinking. Some of them strengthened her courage and gave her hope, and some of them made her afraid. For she said to herself:
“Are these good words for me?”