“Oh, if I could live to see it!” she sighed, with a quivering smile. It was the first time that such a possibility had occurred to her. She threw a wistful glance into the future, which she must never see, and for one moment longed to live. Then for another moment the tears turned salt and bitter. “But that mayna be,” she added, still more low. No, she could not live to see it; but still this sunset gleam had given a gentle radiance to her life.
“A little siller is aye a good thing. I’m very glad the bairn’s provided for,” said the old woman, looking at Marjory keenly. Pride kept her from further inquiry; her ears were keenly open, and her mind intent to find out more fully what was meant; but she would have died sooner than ask a question. Somehow, however, this simple speech of Marjory’s changed the aspect of affairs to Isabell’s mother. It gave a probability to the story of the marriage, which it had never hitherto possessed in her eyes; the moment that money is involved it gives reality to everything. The old woman’s feeling was very different from that vague sense of beatitude with which Isabell herself regarded the possibility of her child’s future wealth; but Marjory was instantly aware of the deepened interest, the increased disposition to believe the story true. She went on to comment on what news she had of the search in which everything was involved.
“The gentleman you saw,” she said, addressing Agnes, and feeling, to her great annoyance, that she blushed, “has gone off in search of these people. He is to go to Guernsey; first and in the meantime we have put advertisements in all the papers for John Macgregor.”
“Adver-tisements!” said Agnes, with dismay. “To give him notice that he may get out of the way and hide himself.”
“Why should he get out of the way and hide himself?”
“It is how they aye do,” said Agnes, obstinately adhering to her own theory. “Whenever a man is wanted for anything, that’s what aye happens. And I would do it myself. If there was an adver-tisement for me in the papers, I would leave my place, or change my lodgings in a moment. Eh, that would I! I would not let myself be taken in a net. And John Macgregor’s no a fool—no such a fool as to come for an advertisement. Na, Miss Heriot, it would have been better to have left it to me.”
The mother drew near, also interested in this question. It was the first time she had taken any distinct interest in it.
“I ken naething about it,” she said, “but putting a man’s name in the papers is like sending a hue and cry after him. I ken John Macgregor, though I put nae trust in him. Ye’ll never tell me that he’ll be brought back by that.”
“No,” said Agnes. They both came near, and stood by shaking their heads; while Isabell, with a face which gradually grew more and more keen with anxiety, raised her eyes to Marjory, and put her thin hands together.
“It’s my last hope,” she said.