“My dear, I have heard all that could be told before you were born. But all the same there has many a ship gone down since then, and many a sore heart has waited and hoped in vain. But I’m no’ goin’ to say all that to Willie Calderwood’s mother, true though it be.”
“And, George,” said Jean speaking for the first time, “you may be quite at peace about Marion.”
“Yes. I leave her with you. She will keep herself quiet.”
“We will take her to Saughleas. That will please my father.”
And so it was settled, and the long days went on. Jean busied herself with her father and her sister, and went out and in just as usual, giving no time when other eyes were upon her to her own thoughts. But she welcomed the night. Sitting in the darkness, with only the grey gleam of the sea for her eyes to rest upon, she gave herself up to thoughts of her friend.
She called him her friend, but she knew that he was more than a friend to her; and she had at least this comfort now, that she was no longer angry or ashamed to care for him still, although he had forgotten her. He would always be her friend now, whether he lived or died. She might grieve for those who loved him, and whom he loved, and for the young strong life lost to the world which needed such as he to do its best work, but he would still be hers in memory, and more in death than in life.
And yet she had a vague dread of the dreariness and emptiness of a world in which he no longer lived and moved, and doubted her power to adapt herself to its strangeness. She knew, or she tried to believe, that good would come out of it all even to her, and when she came to this she always remembered her aunt.
It had been by “kissing the rod” under such discipline as this that her aunt, after long, patient years, had grown to be the best, the most unselfish woman that she knew; yes, and the wisest with the highest wisdom.
Sometimes she had said to herself and to others, that she meant to grow to be such a woman as her aunt, and so take up her work in the world when it should be time for her to lay it down. And now, perhaps, the Lord was taking her at her word, and was about to prepare her for His own work, in His own way, which must be best; and she tried to be glad that it should be so. But when she looked on to the life that lay before her, her heart sank at the length of the way.
“I am not like Aunt Jean. I am not good enough to get her work to do, and to take pleasure in it. Maybe after long years I might be able to do it. If I only had the heart to care for any thing any more!