“Lawsie me!” she bewailed. “I thought it was my Peter!”
Bad enough to be taken for her Peter at any time! And she had to stand there stupidly a moment, to recover from the disappointment, as it were, and then looking straight at him, it was like her to ask:
“Is it you, Wully?” As if she couldn’t see that it was! Standing there filling the door, hiding the room from him! “Whatever is the matter?”
Where was the girl? Was his aunt a permanent blockade? He came vigorously towards her, hurrying her slow cordiality. There she was! There was Chirstie! She had seen him. He went towards her——
And she shrank away from him!
Not only had she not an impulse of welcome, she shrank away from him! She gave him her hand because she couldn’t help herself.
“Chirstie!” he faltered.
“Are you back?” she asked. She pulled her hand away in a panic. “It’s a fine day,” he heard her murmur.
It was the bitterest day of his life! He sat down weakly. Men stagger down helplessly that way when bullets go through them. The damnable aunt began now welcoming him fondly. He didn’t know what he was answering her. It couldn’t be possible, could it, that Chirstie didn’t want to see him? She had taken a seat just as far away from him as the room permitted. She sat about her knitting industriously. Sometimes she raised her eyes to look into the fire, but never once did she raise them to satisfy Wully’s hunger. His eagerness, her refusal, became apparent at length to even the stupid aunt. She understood that Wully had got home only the night before, and in the morning, rain and all, had ridden over to see the girl who didn’t want to see him. He really was looking very ill. Well, well! Isobel McLaughlin would have been mightily “set up” by such a match. If Chirstie had not been Peter’s own cousin, Libby Keith would have liked nothing better than the girl for her son. She had fancied at times her son had thought of it, too. Her sympathy was with the soldier. She rose heavily after really only a few minutes, and said:
“I doubt the setting hens have left the nests, Chirstie.”