In short, poor Agnes had distrusted everybody. She had distrusted Miss Heriot up to the last moment. She distrusted her still, notwithstanding Isabell’s better instinct. She looked at the two together at the present moment with a watchful eye, not half sure that they were not plotting something against, rather than in favour of her search. When she heard them speak of the loss of time, her heart swelled within her. She who had done everything so carefully, so warily, letting nobody know, treating everybody as enemies, making so many subtle, simple schemes to entrap the missing witnesses, was it possible that, after all, she had been letting the precious moments slip out of her hand, the last days of her sister’s life? Agnes was glad to go away, leaving the last and only possible traces of the missing Macgregors in Marjory’s hands, to go out to the silence of the long seaside walk, and to cast her troubled mind abroad to seek out new means of working. She knelt down under the shadow of the Maiden’s Rock, in a crevice of that natural tower, and poured out all her passionate heart in an impassioned prayer. “Oh, bring them to me—bring them!” she prayed, demanding a miracle with pathetic earnestness. There are circumstances in which it is more painful to receive help than to be kept without it. Agnes, poor girl, endured the aid which had fallen upon her with a proud agony of submission, feeling that her heart was torn asunder by the necessity. She had so set her heart upon doing it all herself; she had taken pleasure in her hardships and wanderings, her long walks up and down, and the painful inquiries that never came to anything. And oh, if all this had been but a loss of time! She tried to contradict the thought, though a consciousness that it was true would keep creeping chill upon her. But oh, if the Lord would but step in and direct her, and make her find them now! If He would but prove that the race was not to the swift nor the battle to the strong! If He, the last resort, the final resource in everything, would but bring them to her—put them, as it were, in her hand! Agnes opened her eyes, and clambered down from the rocks, her heart aching with the hope that she might yet meet with strangers on the way, and find that her prayer had been answered. But there was no one to be seen on the long stretch of seaside path, not a soul anywhere. And thus in her humiliation she went slowly home, feeling as if this work, the work that might save Isabell’s life, was taken out of her hands.
CHAPTER XIII.
The two who were left behind were not much more comfortable than Agnes. Marjory, for her part, could not but feel somewhat humiliated too. She had appealed to Fanshawe in the fervour and exultation of her heart, just after she had been roused by the blame she had heard of him, into, perhaps, an unjustifiable adoption of his cause. When he had been blamed, she had asserted his good qualities so indignantly, that faith in what she had herself said had moved her to put him to the test, with a generous and proud confidence. He might be good for nothing, so far as himself was concerned; but he was good for everything to his friends. And lo! at the very first touch, he had been found wanting. He had taken twenty-four hours even to understand the story; and now, when he understood it, he displayed no desire to take up the cause of the injured, no readiness of belief in her, no wish to exert himself in her service. She could not but see that to secure her own society, to be near her and associated with her, Fanshawe would interest himself in almost anything; but that was a very different matter from the generous interest she had expected, and the active help she had desired. She had thought nothing less than that he would go off instantly, scarcely asking a moment to breathe and repose himself, in search of the missing witnesses; and lo! he never suggested the possibility of looking for them at all; he did not even seem to consider himself involved in any way in the matter—as, indeed, he was not, Marjory proudly confessed to herself. She was disappointed, mortified, cut down in her own estimation; though why she should have been so, simply because he had failed her, it is difficult to say. Marjory did not utter her disappointment in words, but she adopted a still more effectual way of showing it. She ascended into regions of lofty politeness which froze the very soul of the visitor within him. She addressed him as she might have done a potentate who had paid to an inferior power the unexpected honour of a visit. She carefully banished all allusion to the business, which yesterday had occupied and excited her so much, from her conversation—and turned that upon trivial subjects, upon the passing events which figured in the newspapers, upon St. Andrews, and the ruins, and golf. Poor Fanshawe was utterly and dismally crushed by this treatment. For an hour after Agnes’s hasty departure, when it had been put in force, he held out under it as best he could, pretending to wish to hear about the Cathedral, and the Castle, and the old town of St. Rule. It was when she suggested a visit to the antiquities after lunch, in company with Dr. Smith, who knew so well how to explain them, that his fortitude failed. He went up to her side with something like timidity.
“It was not for the ruins,” he said, half reproachfully, half timidly, “that I came.”
“Well, perhaps not,” said Marjory; “but when you are in a place where there are interesting ruins, you are bound to visit them, don’t you think?”
Fanshawe made no direct reply; but slightly encouraged by her tone, drew a chair near her.
“And it was not for golf I came.”
“I suppose not, seeing you do not know anything about it. Nothing but utter ignorance,” said Marjory, beguiled to a smile in spite of herself, “could have excused the extraordinary questions you put to my uncle last night.”
“Were they extraordinary questions?” he said, still more encouraged. “No, I did not come for the golf, nor for the sea, nor for St. Andrews, nor for society. I came, because you sent for me; an inducement which would have taken me to the end of the world.”
“Pray don’t remind me how presumptuous I have been, and foolish,” said Marjory, reddening, “to send for you, without considering whether you would agree with me about the importance of the cause.”