Mrs. Ross, of Merkland, threw down her work, and pushed back her chair from the table:
“Upon my word, Anne Ross, you turn more absurd every day. What is the meaning of this?—our name odious! I should not like Lewis to hear you say so.”
“But Lewis does not know this terrible story,” said Anne.
“And never shall,” replied Mrs. Ross. “Neither can your brother’s crime make my son’s name odious to any one. I fancied you knew that Norman was called by your mother’s name; and this Aytoun girl, if she knows anything of it at all, will have heard of him as Rutherford, and not as Ross.”
“But Mrs. Catherine—she at least cannot be ignorant, cannot have forgotten: who could forget this? and my mother was her friend!”
“The friendship has descended, I think,” said Mrs. Ross, with a sneer, “as you seem to imagine feuds should. I suppose you think this girl’s brother, if she has one, would be quite doing his duty if he demanded satisfaction from Lewis, for a thing which happened when the poor boy was a mere infant? But be not afraid, most tender and scrupulous sister. People have better sense in these days.”
Anne Ross turned away, grieved and silenced; her conversations with her step-mother too often terminated so: and there was a long pause. At last she said, timidly, as if desirous, and yet afraid of asking further: “And my father never knew how he died?”
Mrs. Ross glanced hurriedly at the door: “He did not die.”
Anne started violently. “Norman, my brother? I beseech you to tell me, mother, is he not dead?”
“Ah, there is Duncan back, from Portoran,” said Mrs. Ross, rising. “Letters from Lewis, no doubt. How slow they are!” And she rang the bell vehemently.