CHAPTER XXXVIII
Jean was looking out in the opposite direction, somewhat anxious for her stepdaughter’s return. She was standing at the cottage-door with Baby Margaret in her arms, straining her eyes along the vacant road, and full of anxiety. She gave a suppressed scream when Isabel came noiselessly up behind her, and, without saying a word, clutched at the child and took it out of her arm.
‘God bless us, I thought it was a ghost!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Isabel, you’re like death. It’s been more than you can bear.’
‘I am tired,’ said Isabel, holding her child close with a vehemence which terrified the little creature; and as she looked at her stepmother, the pallor gave way to a sudden, overpowering flush. Her eyes fell before the good woman’s anxious, searching look. She turned away, still holding her child strained to her heart. She could not trust herself to meet Jean’s eyes, or even her baby’s. Could she ever venture to look anyone in the face again?
‘It’s a long walk,’ said Jean, anxiously, following her in, ‘and you’ve come the long way round by the braes; and it’s been too much for you. Oh, Isabel, my bonnie woman! it’s brought everything back to your mind.’
‘It did not need the sight of Ailie to do that,’ said Isabel, scarcely knowing what she said. ‘Do things ever go out of one’s mind?’
And she held her child closer than ever, and hid her face in Margaret’s frock. It did not occur to her that she was betraying herself even by the passionate strain of that embrace. Jean gazed at her alarmed, noting every change in her face, the sudden flush and pallor, the inward-looking eyes, the reluctance to meet her own affectionate, anxious gaze.
‘Was she awfu’ changed?’ she asked.
‘Changed—whom?’ said Isabel, with a little start. She had scarcely uttered the words when she recollected herself. Ailie had been driven entirely out of her mind by the after event; the scene which had made so deep an impression on her before she met Stapylton was half effaced from her very recollection. It rose upon her dimly as she tried to remember. ‘Oh, yes, very much changed,’ she said, and stopped short, unable to revive her own interest in a matter so faint and far away.
‘Do you think she’s happy?’ asked Jean.