“And I want you to do something for me in return, Anne,” said Lewis, looking at his watch. “After dinner, come up with me to the Tower, and tell your story to Mrs. Catherine and Alice, your own way. You can do it better than I could, for you have more faith in it than I—altogether,” he continued, rising, with a laugh: “You are more a believing person than I am, I fancy, Anne—no doubt it is quite natural—you women receive whatever’s presented to you—it’s all very right that you should—but something more is required of us.”
Alas! poor Lewis! He did not know how incomparably higher that faculty of belief was than his meagre and poor calculations; nor could comprehend the instant and intuitive apprehension, which darted to its true conclusion at once, and left him weighing his sands of legal evidence so very far behind.
The evening was gusty, wild and melancholy, one of those nights that make the fireside lights look doubly cheerful; and just as little Alice Aytoun crept disconsolately up stairs in the darkness, Lewis and Anne left Merkland for the Tower. They had not much conversation on the way, for Anne was busied, chalking out a plan of procedure for herself, should Robert Ferguson’s mission fail, and Lewis had lighter fancies, unwillingly obscured by some tinge of the truths he had learned that day, to keep him silent. There were no lights in the accustomed windows when they reached the Tower. Mrs. Catherine’s own sitting-room was dark, and from the windows of the dining-parlor, there came only the red glimmer of firelight. Archibald Sutherland sat there alone, as Mrs. Catherine and Alice had left him, and had been too deeply engaged with his own thoughts to heed the gathering darkness.
“Mr. Archibald is in the dining-parlor,” said Jacky, opening the door, as she spoke, to admit Lewis, and gliding back instantly to Anne’s side. With natural delicacy, the servants had followed Mr. Ferguson’s example, and when they could no longer call the broken man “Strathoran,” returned to the kindly name of his boyhood.
“And if ye please, Miss Anne,” continued Jacky, looking up wistfully into Anne’s face. “Mrs. Catherine is in the little room.”
Anne hesitated—Jacky’s keen eyes were fixed upon her anxiously. “May I go in, I wonder, Jacky?”
“If ye please, Miss Anne—” began the girl.
“What, Jacky?”
“Miss Alice is no weel—I saw her gaun up to her ain room, slow and heavy. Mostly ye canna hear her foot, it’s like a spirit’s—the night it was dragging slow and sad-like, and I heard her say—”
Jacky paused.