“Is she pleased?” said Edgar.
“I don’t understand her, sir,” said the woman; “it looks to me as if she was a bit touched”—and here Mrs. Hesketh laid her finger on her own forehead. “Husht! she’ll hear. She won’t take a morsel of rest, won’t t’oud dame. I canna think how she lives; but, bless you! she’s got somethin’ else on her mind—something more than Jinny. I’m a’most sure—— Lord! I’ve spoke below my breath, but she’s heard us, and she’s coming here.”
“Will you watch my bairn ten minutes, while I speak to the gentleman?” said Mrs. Murray. “Eh! I hope you’ll be blessed and kept from a’ evil, for you’re a good woman—you’re a good woman. Aye, she’s better. She’ll win through, as I always said. We’ve grand constitutions in our family. Oh, my bonnie lad! it’s a comfort to me to see your face.”
Edgar must have started slightly at this address, for the old woman started too, and looked at him with a bewildered air. “What did I say?” she asked. “Mr. Edgar, I’ve sleepit none for three nights. My heart has been like to burst. I’m worn out—worn out. If I said something that wasna civil, I beg your pardon. It is not always quite clear to me what I say.”
“You said no harm,” said Edgar. “You have always spoken kindly, very kindly, to me—more kindly than I had any right to. And I hope you will continue to think of me kindly, for I am not very cheerful just now, nor are my prospects very bright——”
“Your prospects no bright!” Mrs. Murray looked round to see that no one was near, and then she came out upon the step, and closed the cottage door behind her, and came close up to him. “Tell me what’s wrong with you—oh, tell me what’s wrong with you!” she said, with an eager anxiety, which was too much in earnest to pause or think whether such a request was natural. Then she stopped dead short, recollecting—and went on again with very little interval, but with a world of changed meaning in her voice. “Many a one has come to me in their trouble,” she said. “It’s that that makes me ask—folk out of my ain rank like you. Whiles I have given good advice, and whiles—oh! whiles I have given bad; but its that that makes me ask. Dinna think it’s presumption in me.”
“I never thought it was presumption,” said Edgar; and there came upon him the strongest, almost irresistible, impulse to tell what had happened to him to this poor old woman at the cottage door. Was he growing mad too?—had his misfortune and excitement been too much for him? He smiled feebly at her, as he bewildered himself with this question. “If I cannot tell you now, I will afterwards,” he said; and lingered, not saying any more. Her keen eyes investigated him while he stood so close to her. His fresh colour was gone, and the frank and open expression of his face. He was very pale; there were dark lines under his eyes; his mouth was firmly closed, and yet it was tremulous with feeling repressed and restrained. Alarm and a look of partial terror came into Mrs. Murray’s face.
“Tell me, tell me!” she cried, grasping his arm.
“There is nothing to tell, my good woman,” he said, and turned away.
She fell back a step, and opened the door which she had held closed behind her. Her face would have been a study to any painter. Deep mortification and wounded feeling were in it—tears had come to her eyes. Edgar noticed nothing of all this, because he was fully occupied with his own affairs, and had no leisure to think of hers; and had he noticed it, his perplexity would have been so intense that he could have made nothing of it. He stood, not looking at her at all—gone back into his own thoughts, which were engrossing enough.