“Tell me all you know,” said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her. “And why did you not tell me before?”
“I did not like—and I thought you must ken about it.”
“Ah! yes. It is sad enough. No wonder you didna like to speak about it. But tell me now all you know.”
And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell. She had heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and another of their friends. And Jean could not but wonder that, May having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little. But May knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what he called the folly of his son. It was just this that May ought to know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible. She wondered a little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.
“Poor Elsie! But she might have died even if she had not been sent to the school. How little folk ken! They say in Portie that her mother sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas—and that her pride got a fall. It is a sorrowful story, Jean.”
“And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone from us. And even if he were to come home, it might be little better.”
“Is my father angry yet, Jean? Or is he sorry? Would he do the same if it were all to do over again?”
“Who can say! He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of them cannot but be bitter enough. But as to his doing differently—” Jean shook her head.
“But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether. His heart was set on his only son, and George was but a boy.”
“Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father might have yielded at last.”