This was how Lily came to be acquainted with all that was going on. They all appealed to her behind backs, each hoping he or she was alone in calling for her sympathy. “You will tell her better than I can; they all distrust an old man. They think the blood’s dry in his veins and he has forgotten he was once like the rest. And she will listen to him at the last. The thought that he’s going away, to fall deeper and deeper, and that strong delusion she has got that she can save him, will overcome her, and I’ll be left in the corner of the auld Manse sitting alone.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Blythe, never think that; Helen will not leave you.”
“I would not trust her, nor one of them,” he cried, and there in the dark, sitting almost unseen beside the fire, his voice came forth toneless, like that of a dead man. “I have never been thought to make much work about my bairns: one has gone and another has gone, and it has been said that the minister never minded. But there was once an auld man that said: ‘When I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.’”
Lily put her hand upon the large, soft, limp hand of the old minister in quick sympathy. “She will never leave you,” she repeated: “you need fear nothing for that—she will never go away.”
He shook his head and put his other hand for a moment over hers. “You may have been led astray,” he said, “poor little thing! but your heart is in the right place.”
Lily did not think or ask herself what he meant about being led astray. She was too much occupied with Helen, who came in at the moment with the thrill and quiver in her which was the sign that she had seen her lover. The waning sunset light from the window which had seen so many strange sights indicated this movement too, the tremor that affected her head and slight shoulders like a chill of colder air from without. She said softly as she passed Lily: “There is one at the door would fain speak a word to you.” It was not a call which Lily was very ready to obey. She had kept as far as possible out of the reach of Duff, and she had not the same sympathy for him as for the others involved; indeed, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding the charm of the romance, Lily’s feelings were far more strongly enlisted on the side of the gentle and patient young minister than on any other. She lingered, putting away some scraps of work which had been on the table, until she could no longer resist Helen’s piteous looks. “Oh, go, go!” she whispered close to Lily’s ear. It was a blustering March night, the wind and the dust blowing in along the passage when the Manse door was opened, and Lily obeyed, very reluctantly, the gesture of the dark figure outside, which moved before her to a corner sheltered by the lilac bushes, which evidently was a spot very familiar. She felt that she could almost trace the steps of Helen on the faint line which was not distinct enough to be a path, and that opening among the branches—was it not the spot where she had leaned for support through many a trying interview? Duff tacitly ceded that place to Lily, and then turned upon her with his eyes blazing through the faint twilight. “You are with them all day, you hear all they’re saying. They’re all in a conspiracy to keep me hanging on, and no satisfaction. Tell me: am I to be cast off again like an old clout, or is there any hope that she’ll come at the last?”
“There is no hope that she’ll come; how could she?” cried Lily. “Her father is old and infirm, Mr. Duff, she has told you. It is cruel to keep her like this, always in agitation. She cannot; how could she? Her father——”
“Confound her father!” he cried, swinging his fist through the air. “What’s her father to her own life and mine? You think one person should swamp themselves for another, Lily Ramsay. You’ve not been so happy in doing that yourself, if all tales be true.”
“What tales?” cried Lily, breathless with sudden excitement; and then she paused and said proudly: “Take notice, Mr. Duff, that I am not Lily Ramsay to you!”
“What are you, then?” he cried, with a laugh of scorn. “If you’ve kept your father’s name, you are just Lily Ramsay to Alick Duff, and nothing else. Our forefathers have known each other for hundreds of years. There was even a kind of a cousinship, a grandmother of mine that was a Ramsay, or yours that was a Duff, I cannot remember; but if you expect me, that knew you before you were born, to stand on ceremony—and Lumsden too,” he added, in a lower tone, “whatever you may be to him.”