‘Isabel,’ he said, hoarsely; ‘though you are cruel to me, I will not be hard upon you. I love you the same as ever—and you love me; all that has come between us is past. Don’t let us so much as speak of that—it is all over, my darling; there is no obstacle between us now. No, I will not press you further. I would not vex you for all the world. I will come to you to the old place or to your own house, my dear, if that is better. And after all it has cost us, Isabel—oh, Isabel! may we not be happy at last?’
‘Horace, let me be!’ she cried, rising to her feet and holding out her hands to him as with an appeal for mercy.
‘I can never let you be,’ he cried, seizing her hands and putting down his face upon them for one moment. She felt that his eyes were wet and his lips dry and quivering, and their positions seemed reversed all at once—and it was she who yearned over him, longing to console him and give some comfort to his heart.
‘Oh, Horace,’ she said, ‘you are going away—you said you were going away? and you’ll forget. I could not live if I thought it grieved you and made your heart sore. You’ll go away, and you’ll think on me no more! Why should we be so sorry? It has not been appointed that you and me should be together. Bid me farewell; and, oh, go away and mind me no more. But I’ll think of you every night when I say my prayers.’
His answer was such a groan as made her start and shrink; and then he raised a pale, passionate face to her, and drew her to him, holding both her hands.
‘You are to be my wife, Isabel!’ he said.
‘No: oh, no. I am his wife,’ she said, with a cry half of terror; ‘and my child—my child!’
‘Was it my fault he took you from me?’ he cried. ‘I was absent and did not know. Your child shall be mine, Isabel; and you are mine—say you are mine! We can never more part again.’
‘Oh, Horace! let me go.’
It was the sound of a step on the road which interrupted this strange struggle. He let her hands fall as this sound, and that of a cheerful rural voice singing some homely ditty, fell suddenly into those exclamations of passion, and stopped them as by a spell. When Helen, the ‘lass’ from Ardnamore, came down the road she saw, at first without surprise, Mrs. Lothian walking down before her, with a ‘strange gentleman’ by her side—‘ane of thae English,’ Helen said to herself, reflecting that the young widow had been in London, and consequently might be supposed to be acquainted with that nation in general. Helen’s after reflections, when she came to put this and that together, were of a different character, but for the moment she was not suspicious. She passed them with the ordinary salutation, ‘It’s a fine day,’ taking no note of the tearful dilation of Isabel’s eyes; and, all unconsciously to herself, was Isabel’s guardian and protector. It was like the Stapylton of old that he should have fallen into a moody silence after this interruption. And he left Isabel when they reached the highroad. ‘I will see you again,’ was all he said. To see them thus parting, taking different directions, no one would have thought what a contest of wills had just taken place between them, nor with what an agitated soul Isabel turned along the sunny way by the Loch side, to the home which had once been so still and quiet, where her baby awaited her, and her tranquil, pensive, unexciting life remained waiting to be taken up again as soon as she should return.