“Woman, you are just without conscience,” cried her sister. “Would that be either right or fair? No, no, they must just abide by their lot as it is shaped out. It would be a cruel thing to drop that poor lad now for no fault of his—just because she did not know her own mind. No, no, I have Ronald’s interest much at heart, and I’m fond in a way of that bit little Effie, though she’s often been impertinent—but I would never interfere. Bless me! If I had known there was to be so little satisfaction got out of it, that’s a veesit I never would have paid. I am turning terrible giddy. I can scarcely see where I’m going. I wish I had stayed at home.”
“If we had not just come away as it were in a fuff,” said Miss Beenie, “you would have had your cup of tea, and that would have kept up your strength.”
“Ay, if,” said Miss Dempster. “That’s no doubt an argument for keeping one’s temper, but it’s a little too late. Yes, I wish I had got my cup of tea. I am feeling very strange; everything’s going round and round before my eyes. Eh, I wish I was at my own door!”
“It’s from want of taking your food. You’ve eaten nothing this two or three days. Dear me, Sarah, you’re not going to faint at your age! Take a hold of my arm and we’ll get as far as Janet Murray’s. She’s a very decent woman. She will soon make you a cup of tea.”
“No, no—I’ll have none of your arm. I can just manage,” said Miss Dempster. But her face had grown ashy pale. “We’re poor creatures,” she murmured, “poor creatures: it’s all the want of—the want of—that cup o’ tea.”
“You’ll have to see the doctor,” said Miss Beenie. “I’m no more disposed to pin my faith in him than you are; but there are many persons that think him a very clever man——”
“No, no, no doctor. Old Jardine’s son that kept a shop in—— No, no; I’ll have no doctor. I’ll get home—I’ll——”
“Oh,” cried Miss Beenie. “I will just run on to Janet Murray’s and bid her see that her kettle is aboil. You’ll be right again when you’ve had your tea.”
“Yes, I’ll be—all right,” murmured the old lady. The road was soft and muddy with rain, the air very gray, the clouds hanging heavy and full of moisture over the earth. Miss Beenie hastened on for a few steps, and then she paused, she knew not why, and looked round and uttered a loud cry; there seemed to be no one but herself on the solitary country road. But after a moment she perceived a little heap of black satin on the path. Her first thought, unconscious of the catastrophe, was for this cherished black satin, the pride of Miss Dempster’s heart.
“Oh, your best gown!” she cried, and hurried back to help her sister out of the mire. But Miss Beenie soon forgot the best gown. Miss Dempster lay huddled up among the scanty hawthorn bushes of the broken hedge which skirted the way. Her hand had caught against a thorny bramble which supported it. She lay motionless, without speaking, without making a sign, with nothing that had life about her save her eyes. Those eyes looked up from the drawn face with an anxious stare of helplessness, as if speech and movement and every faculty had got concentrated in them.