The three young people sat looking at one another in silence. Shenac Bhan’s heart beat so strongly that she thought her mother must hear it in her bed; but she could not put her thought in words—“Allister is coming home.” Shenac Dhu spoke first.
“Hamish—Shenac, I told my father that Allister would never leave our Evan alone to die among strangers.”
She paused, looking eagerly first at one and then at the other.
“No,” said Hamish; “he would never do that, if he knew it in time to stay. We can but wait and see.”
“Wait and see!” Shenac Bhan echoed the words in her heart. If they had heard that he was to stay for months, or even for years, she thought she could bear it better than this long suspense.
“Shenac,” said her cousin, reading her thought, “you would not have Allister come and leave him? It will only be a little longer whether Evan lives or dies.”
“No,” said Shenac; “but my mother.”
“We will not tell her for a little while,” said Hamish. “If Allister is coming it will be soon; and if he has stayed, it will give my mother more hope of his coming home at last to hear that he is well and that he is waiting for Evan.”
“And my father,” said Shenac Dhu. “Oh! if you had seen how he grasped at the hope when I said Allister was sure to stay, you would not grudge him for a day or two. Think of the poor lad dying so far from home and from us all!” And poor Shenac clung to her cousin, bursting into sobs and bitter tears.
“Whisht, Shenac, darling,” said her cousin, her own voice broken with sobs; “we can only have patience.”