“Every man says that, until the moment comes when he feels differently,” said Charles, in his uneasy didactic way.
“Does he? then that moment will never come for me,” said Edgar, carelessly.
Poor little Jeanie! she had opened the door, the two young men not observing her in their preoccupation, and Edgar’s words came fully into her heart like a volley of musketry. She stood behind them for a moment in the partial gloom—for they were standing between her and the light of the feeble candles—unnoticed, holding the door. Then noiselessly she stole back, closing it, her heart all riddled by that chance discharge, wounded and bleeding. Then she went to the kitchen softly, and called Bell. “My head’s sair,” she said, which on Loch Arroch means, my head aches. “Will you see if they want anything in the parlour, Bell?”
“My poor lamb!” said Bell, “I wish it beena your heart that’s sair. Ye are as white as a ghost. Go to your bed, my bonnie woman, and I’ll see after them, Lord bless us, what a bit white face! Go to your bed, and dinna let your Granny see you like that. Oh ay! I’ll see to the two men.”
Jeanie crept up-stairs like a mouse, noiseless in the dark staircase. She needed no light, and to hide herself seemed so much the most natural thing to do. White! Jeanie felt as if her face must be scorched as her heart seemed to be. Why should he have volunteered this profession of indifference? It seemed so much the worse because it was uncalled for. Did anyone say he cared for her? Had any one accused him of being “fond” of Jeanie? Shame seemed to take possession of the little soft creature. Had she herself done anything to put such a degrading idea into his mind? Why should he care for her? “I never asked him—I never wanted him,” poor Jeanie cried to herself.
Edgar never knew the second great effect he had produced on this eventful day. When Jeanie appeared at the early breakfast before he set out next morning, he was honestly concerned to see how pale she looked. “My poor dear child, you are ill,” he cried, drawing her towards him, and his look of anxious kindness struck poor Jeanie like a blow.
“I’m not ill. It’s my head. It’s nothing,” she said, starting away from him. Edgar looked at her with mild astonished eyes.
“You are not vexed with me this last morning? Take care of the dear old mother, Jeanie—but I know you will do that—and write to me sometimes to say she is well; and talk of me sometimes, as you promised—you remember?”
His kind friendly words broke Jeanie’s heart. “Oh, how can you look so pleased and easy in your mind!” she said, turning, as was natural, the irritation of her personal pain into the first possible channel, “when you know you are going away without a penny, for our sake—for her sake——”
“And yours,” Edgar added cheerily. “That is what makes me easy in my mind.”