“Go away, and bring me the lamp in an hour. I like the gloaming,” said Miss Jean in a softened tone.
“Gloaming! it was mirk as midnicht, and her an old witch, sitting in the dark,” said the woman, reporting the circumstance below; and this further aggravation of a weird old woman seated by herself unseen at the window, seeing nobody could tell how far or how keenly, carried a still further element of mystery into the vague wonder and suspense of the house.
The arrival of Mr. Charles, which took place late, about ten o’clock, when it was quite dark, was the first thing that roused the old lady. He came in very unsteady on his long legs, with a somewhat dazed and pre-occupied look—too much absorbed by all the events of the evening to be much startled by anything that might happen, even by a visitor so unexpected. He came in and made some sort of greeting, taking her presence for granted in a way which bewildered her, and then threw himself upon a chair in the dim room. “She’s dying,” he said in that dull tone of spent excitement which expresses so much.
“Who’s dying?” cried Miss Jean in alarm, starting from her seat at the window. “Not our May?”
“May?” Mr. Charles said with a kind of dull wonder. “May? She’s yonder,” pointing his thumb over his shoulder, “as she was at Tom’s side, poor fellow! God be praised, no—it’s not her; but that poor thing—”
“The—gamekeeper’s daughter;—the—lass—? but that’s too good news.”
Mr. Charles looked at her with reproof in his eyes. “You know nothing about it. She is far from a common kind of lass; but that is a thing women never can understand,” he added, taking a certain vigour from his opposition. “How those that are on the other side, should have any title to respect—that is a thing you can never understand.”
“Maybe not,” said Miss Jean with lively and instant assumption of the quarrel. “We’re no so clever as you. You can aye discriminate; ye see at a glance, and tell the good from the evil. We’re weaker vessels; but, perhaps, if ye were to tell me some of the arguments that convinced your strong mind—”
Mr. Charles jumped up, galled at this speech and the tone in which it was uttered; but his weariness overcame him, and he sat down again, somewhat humbled. “No argument—no argument,” he said, “the sight of her—that is all. I’ve left Marjory there. She’ll not leave the bedside so long as life remains. I thought she might have come away now, for the poor thing is no longer conscious; but May feels it her duty to Tom.”
“And you left her—a lady—a young woman—to come home alone.”