“And where is he?” asked Mrs. Catherine. “Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?”
“I have never asked yet,” said Anne. “I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick’s death.”
“Ay—ay,” said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; “ay—and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing.—This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine.”
And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole.
Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick’s death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject.
Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them.
“Eh, Johann!—Eh, Miss Ross!” she could articulate no more.
“What in the world has come ower the woman now?” exclaimed Miss Crankie, peevishly. “If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, ye may keep your ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue; dinna deave the ladies.”
“Eh, Miss Ross!—Eh, Johann!” exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs. Yammer, “if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye mysel. Look at this.”
Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph, headed “Romance in real life,” with hurried half attention, and little interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read them aloud: “This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh—”