"I strongly advise you, Mrs. Dorriman, to read through those papers. They may throw a great deal of light upon your position. You may be in a better, a far better position, than you think."
"I cannot," she said, in a low voice. "I am afraid. I may some day bring myself to do so, but I cannot do it now. Will you keep them for me? Oh, do! and never let any one, never let my brother know you have them. Some day if I am in great difficulty, and cannot see my way, I will ask you to read them."
She stopped for a moment, and then, turning towards them with a passion they had hardly credited her with, she said, with tears rolling over her face, "You do not know, how can you! But I was so hard. I could not forgive my husband for his want of success. He loved me dearly, and I—I had no love to give him. Then when he died I forgave him, and he knew it; but I never thought of this, that I was to be dependent again and lose my home and all.... I am beginning to think hardly of him again. I am afraid of seeing something in those papers ... something that may make me hate...."
She paused, broken down by the overpowering emotion that had taken possession of her, and Mr. Macfarlane was moved, and went over to her and took her hand. "Forgive me," he said, "I will urge you no more; but before taking this with me," he added, laying his hand upon the box, "we will seal it up together." He got some packing-paper and some rope, and he made her seal it up with her own seal. She obeyed him quietly; her sudden and unwonted burst of emotion having left her calmer, quieter, and paler than usual.
When she had parted from these real friends she felt as though she was losing all she cared for; in her repressed life so little affection had ever come to her, save and except that her husband had given her.
The papers were safe and out of her hands. This was a fact she dwelt on with great satisfaction when the last sound of the carriage broke through the quiet. Mrs. Dorriman went out. She was going up the hills to say farewell to the old people to whom her going was a real grief, and before going went to give Jean orders to prepare something against her return, and something for the following day.
Jean was looking full of importance, and her mistress, well accustomed to her ways, knew that she had something to tell, had something to reveal, and that she intended to be questioned. "What are you going to do, my poor Jean, when we part to-morrow? You have not yet told me."
"We are not going to part here," said Jean, a look of triumph on her face.
"No," said Mrs. Dorriman, who felt this coming parting sorely. "I supposed you would go to the station and see me off. I am glad of that."
"Further than that," said Jean, emphatically.