The child lay in that stiller rest as though about to awaken, flowers were around it, and on its face was the smile with which it had left her.
In a moment Jean heard the welcome sound of tears and a sob, and rising quietly she shut the window and left the room, knowing just then solitude was best.
Margaret was saved: day by day she began now to rally, her words were still whispers from the extremity of her weakness, but she began to listen and notice and answered; still, to Grace's impatient eyes, the progress was slow.
They told her of Mr. Drayton's death, but no one could fathom her thoughts about it. Grace worried Jean every hour and every moment of the day. "It seems so hard, Jean, now all is over, why can she not be as she used to be?"
"She never will be that, my bairn," said the old woman, "she will bear a scar all her days in her heart. It will heal, but there will be the mark. A wound like that is not a thing that can be blotted out altogether."
"You know, I never saw the baby," said Grace.
"It is not only the loss of the baby, that's sore, but a sense of having sinned, that's helping to keep her down," said Jean; "she feels that she has done evil that good may come, and we are commanded not to do that. And her nerves are nearly gone. You do not realize, my dear, all that poor thing has suffered. I tremble, myself, when I think of her, month after month, in the power of the poor madman. It's awful, Miss Grace, you must just be patient and pray for her too."
Mrs. Dorriman's letters were now addressed to Margaret, and showed to no one.
But one day she said to Jean, "When the doctor next comes, Jean, we will ask him when I may go to Scotland," and the old woman was delighted, for to her to be so far from Mrs. Dorriman, and not a "kent face" near her, was a trial.