“I do not think that boyish, Lewis,” said Anne. “We must take measures more active than James’s mere watching the district. Lewis, it is my turn to be called childish now. You must let me try—I must go to this place myself.”
Lewis opened his eyes in consternation:
“You try! you go yourself! why, what on earth could you do? Anne, you are mad!”
“I am not mad, Lewis, in the least degree, and yet I must go to this place myself; it is not in self-confidence. I have patience more than you, and time less occupied; I never expected that this work could be done easily or soon. Lewis, I must go.”
They were entering the house as Anne spoke. Lewis did not answer her. He only shook his head impatiently. There was something humiliating in the very idea that she could accomplish a thing in which he had failed.
He met his mother dutifully and with proper respect and kindness. Mrs. Aytoun’s natural, unassuming dignity and entire sympathy with her children; the frank, affectionate, tender intercourse subsisting between them; the seemly regard for her opinion, which was no less apparent in her manly son, James, than in her gentle daughter, Alice, had charmed Lewis unconsciously. The absolute propriety and fitness of that natural honor and reverence made an involuntary impression upon him—an impression which now softened his voice and restrained his temper. With good training, and these righteous influences round him, Lewis was a hopeful subject yet.
“So you have returned as you went away?” said Mrs. Ross, when they had been some little time together.
“Yes,” said Lewis, “I should say worse, for I had some hope then, and I have none now.”
“I thought it was all nonsense,” said Mrs. Ross. “I knew you could make nothing of it.”
“You were wrong then, mother,” said Lewis, quickly. “We have got no evidence—but I believe now, what I did not believe when we left Merkland, that Norman is innocent.”