‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath.
At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears—a momentary paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I think it was some devil,’ she said.
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking—not you that was always so good!’
‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew—if it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I open my eyes, and my heart cries out—He has broken His word.’
‘Ailie! Ailie!’
‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it—all! I thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel, you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken His own word. He’s done nought—nought—nought, that He said!’
‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end. ‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’
‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing them to her breast.
And then there was a pause. Isabel, to whom this sounded like blasphemy, drew a step or two apart, full of agitation and alarm. But Ailie was not excited. She did not even change her attitude, but sat still with her eyes vaguely fixed on the world without, and the Loch which lay so bright in the sunshine. She gazed, but she saw nothing—her mind’s eye was turned inward; and to the young creature full of life, and all its movements, who stood by her, this abstracted woman was a marvel past all comprehension. Was she unhappy in her home? was it in the want of love that had frozen her? was it grief or loss, or some bereavement of which Isabel knew nothing? She broke the silence at last with timid inquiries, which sounded like a prayer.
‘But, Ailie,’ she asked, faltering at every word, ‘you have had no grief—in your life? You have still your husband? There has been no—death—nor—trouble? You’ve been—happy?—as much as folk are in this world?’