Kirsteen smiled again faintly. “Oh, yes, I will come back—there will be nothing more, no fighting nor battles—nothing to stop me—and nobody—to wait for me”—she added, “as I would have been content to wait—I was very content—just to think he was coming—some time. But that’s over—just an old story. It is time to shut up the house and go to our beds.”
“Oh, my darlin’ bairn! Dinna shut it all up like that. Tell me about it—or if you will not tell me, oh, dear Miss Kirsteen, let the tears flow!”
“My eyes are dry and so is my throat, Miss Jean, I cannot speak—I cannot cry—I’m not one for telling—— Good-night—I will just go away to my bed.”
She lighted her candle which threw a strange new light upon her colourless face, and the rings of hair upon her milk-white forehead out of which nothing could take the colour. Kirsteen’s face even now had not the meekness and patience of a saint, but her hair was like an aureole round her wan countenance. She was going out of the room without saying any more, when she suddenly bethought herself, and coming back went up to Miss Jean, and kissed her—a very unusual ceremony between these two shy Scotswomen. The old lady coloured to the edge of her grey hair with pleasure and surprise. “Oh, Miss Kirsteen,” she said—
“You are very kind—you are just a mother. You are like my Marg’ret,” Kirsteen said. That name brought a rush of tears to her eyes for the first time. Marg’ret alone in all the world would know—Marg’ret would not need to be told. If she could lay her head on Marg’ret’s shoulder then her heart might break in peace. She had to bind it up now with bands of iron—for there was nobody in the world save him and her and Marg’ret that knew.
The workroom continued very throng for ten days or so longer, and during this time Kirsteen worked like two women. She had never been so inventive, so full of new combinations. With her white face, and without a smile, she stood over Lady Chatty, that grand lay-figure and advertising medium for the mantua-maker, and made her glorious with beautiful garments—beautiful according to the fashion of the time and all that Kirsteen knew: for no genius (in dress) can over-step these limits. Lady Chatty, full of affection and kindness, soon discovered the something which was wrong. She put her hands on either side of Kirsteen’s face and compelled her friend to look at her. “What ails you, Kirsteen? Oh, what ails you?” “Nothing,” Kirsteen said. “Oh, don’t tell me it is nothing. You look as if you had died and it was the ghost of Kirsteen that was here.” Kirsteen smiled up on the beautiful face looking so anxiously into hers, and said, “Maybe that is just true,” but would say no more. And the business in the workroom was done with a sort of passion by everybody there. They had heard that as soon as the press was over Miss Kirsteen was going away. They did not exchange any exhortations, but by one consent they addressed themselves to their work with an unspoken thought that the sooner they were done the sooner she would be released. It was partly that the sight of her became intolerable to these emotional spectators, who had each a private vision of her own of the tragedy. Had Kirsteen wept and raved and got over it they would have wept with her and consoled her; but the anguish which did not weep, which said nothing, was more than they could bear. They were all silent round the long table, bending over their work, working as some one of them said, “as if it were a large mourning order and all for sum ’un of one’s own.” And the season was just at its end—Kirsteen held her place till the last great ball was over, and then she went away.
No difficulty now about paying for the coach or procuring her seat. She was no longer afraid of any danger on the road, or of the world unknown. The whirl of progress through the great country, through the towns and villages, across the long level plains of England, no longer filled her with that vague mystery and ecstasy of being which belonged to her first journey. The movement, it was true, gave a certain solace to her pain. The complete silence in which no one could ask her a question, fenced off as that was by the surrounding of incessant sound, the tramp of the horses, the jar of the wheels, the murmurs of the voices, was a relief to her from the daily intercourse of ordinary life. After she got to Glasgow she had to think over her further route. She had no desire to reveal herself, to let any one know she had come. Her mission was almost a secret one; to make it known would have gone against all the sanctities of memory; therefore, Kirsteen would not even give herself the pleasure of seeing Marg’ret, of sending for her at some wayside corner, or in some village as she had once thought of doing. She drove from Glasgow in postchaises where it was possible, in country gigs or carts, where no better could be had, avoiding all the places where she might be recognized. She embarked in a smack upon the Clyde and sat forlorn upon the deck watching the hills and islands drifting by, as if they were part of a much prolonged and almost endless dream. It was July, the brightest month of the year, and the weather was one blaze of brightness, as if to mock Kirsteen whose heart was sick of the sunshine. There was nothing but sunshine everywhere, over the hills, bringing out the glistening of a hundred burns over their slopes, and making the lochs and the great river into shimmering paths of gold. It made her heart sick to see it all so bright, and him lying far away with that handkerchief to his lips.
And at last Kirsteen came in the gloaming, at the softened hour, the hour most full of love and longing, to his mother’s gate.
CHAPTER X.
“Kirsteen!”