“Yes, she was perhaps the more to blame, if any one is to blame. Anyhow, the poor little thing—I can’t explain it, you should see her, she would tell you—caught cold or something. How could I send you word when she was so ill? I would have kept it from her now, at least till she was stronger and better able to bear it.”
“It would, maybe, have been better,” Beenie said, with a brevity that surprised Ronald and made him slightly uneasy. The woman did not break forth into lamentations, as he had expected, but that might be for Lily’s sake, who, lying back again upon the white pillow which Beenie had placed behind her head, with the effect of making her almost transparent countenance, with its faint but deepened lines, look more fragile than ever, was coming gradually to herself. Tears were slowly welling forth under her closed eyelids, but she was very still. Whether she was listening, or whether she was absorbed in her own sorrow and careless of what was going on, he could not tell. Anyhow, it was a relief to him that she was silent, and that the woman who was her closest attendant and confidant was so easily satisfied. He began to question her anxiously as to where Lily should go for her convalescence now that her object in coming there was so sadly ended. Portobello, Bridge of Allan, wherever it was, he would go at once and look for rooms. He would come when she was settled and spend as much time as possible with her. He took the whole matter at once into his own hands. And it was with a sensation of relief that he concluded after all this was said that he could now go away. “You will do well to get her to bed and give her a sleeping-draught if you have one,” he said, bending over Lily with a most anxious and tender countenance as she lay, still with her eyes closed, against the pillow. It was not how he had expected her to take this dreadful news which he had brought: he had expected a passion of grief, almost raving; he had expected violent weeping, a storm of lamentation. He had, on the contrary, got through very easily; the tears even had ceased to hang upon Lily’s closed eyelids. He bent down over her and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. She shrank from the touch, indeed, but yet he felt that he must expect so much as that.
“There is but one thing, sir,” said Beenie: “the woman Marg’ret, that does not seem to me to be such a grand nurse as we heard she was—you say we should see her and she would tell us a’. And that is just what I’m wanting, to see her, if you could tell me where to find her.”
“I tell you! How should I know?” he said. “She will be in the same place where we found her before, I suppose.”
“No, sir, she is not there.”
“Then she will have gone off to nurse somebody else. That’s her way of living, isn’t it? No, I can tell you nothing about her. You may suppose the sight of her was not very pleasant to me after—— But she is a well-known person. You will find no difficulty in finding her out.”
“If that’s your real opinion, Mr. Lumsden——”
“Of course it is my opinion. I will take a run to the Bridge of Allan to-morrow, and in the evening I will bring you word.”
With this, and with careful steps, not to disturb Lily, but yet with an uneasy soul and no certainty that he had succeeded in his bold stroke, Lumsden went away, Beenie respectfully accompanying him to the door. But when it was closed upon him, Beenie, though no light-footed girl, flew up the stairs, and rushing into the room with her hands outstretched, was met by Lily, who fell upon her maid’s shoulder, both of them saying together: “It is not true! it’s no true!”
“The Lord forgive him!” said Beenie. “And, oh, I hope you’ll be able to do it, but no me! I’m not a good woman, I’m just a wild Highlander, and I could have put a pistol to his head as he stood there!”