“You are talking nonsense,” said her father, letting her hand drop from his arm with a certain impatience. “Tom might have known better than to make such an appeal to you. Where is he? And if he were so very bad how could he have written? Phoo, phoo, May; this fuss and nonsense is not like you.”
“It is not my doing,” she cried. “Oh! papa, look, the afternoon is flying away, and we shall lose the train.”
He looked up at the sky as she did, and somehow this practical reference seemed to alarm him more than all she had said. In the bright, slanting sunshine which suddenly burst upon him at this moment, his face paled as suddenly as if some evil breath had passed over it.
“The train! I did not think of that. You can order the carriage if you like,” he said. “It is nonsense; but I will put some things into a bag, if I must be foolish and go with you on a fool’s errand—”
“Your things are all ready, papa; I have seen to everything. If we do not miss the train—”
“I will go round to the stables myself,” he said; and then he turned upon her with a forced smile. “Mind, I think it a fool’s errand—a fool’s errand; but to please you, May—”
Marjory stood motionless, as with a harsh little laugh he strode away from her. She could not have borne any more; but when Uncle Charles came suddenly round the corner of the old house, blown so suddenly round by the wind, which seemed to sway his long legs and slight, stooping figure, there burst from her, too, a little hysterical laugh, which somehow seemed to relieve her as tears might have done.
“What a wind!” said Mr. Charles. “You may laugh, but a slim person has hard ado to stand before it; and rising every moment, May. I should not like to be on the Firth to-night.”
“I hope we shall get across,” said May, eagerly, “before it is quite dark.”
“Get across?” said Uncle Charles, in consternation. “Who is going to Edinburgh to-night?”