He stood eyeing her for a moment, as if uncertain how to deal with this obstinacy. Then he turned away with once more that careless shrug of his shoulders.
‘Of course it is the only thing I do ask,’ he said, ‘as is always the way with women. But never mind: May is better for a long voyage than December; and something may have happened by that time to change the circumstances—or you may have changed your mind.’
‘What could happen, Horace? and I will never change my mind.’
‘Well, well, say no more about it,’ he said, ‘and we shall see when the time comes.’
Next day she was left alone to think over all this, and exaggerate all her difficulties in her own silent mind, closed up from all possibility of help or sympathy. Stapylton went off to Kilcranion in the morning, to look, as he said, for a house. He did not ask her to go with him, but took it for granted that she should remain behind with her fancy work, and be ready to receive him when he arrived by the evening boat. When she had watched the morning boat depart which conveyed him away, and found herself alone standing on the shore in this strange place where she knew no one, Isabel felt herself seized upon by the strangest tumult of feeling. She was free. His back was turned who was dearest to her, and yet whom she had begun to fear. Oh, if she had wings like a dove to flee to her baby! Oh, to go to Margaret!
A yearning came over her such as she could not restrain. She cried aloud, as the sheep do on the hill, in mournfullest bleating, for the lost lambs. Oh, her baby!—her nursling, taken out of her bosom! not by God, which must be borne; but by a caprice—a mistake—the unkind will of a man.
‘Will he no be in to his dinner?’ said the landlady, coming with a sharp knock to the door, and disturbing all Isabel’s thoughts.
‘Not till the evening,’ said Isabel, hastily drying her eyes. ‘Mr. Stapylton is coming back by the last boat.’
‘But ye’ll hae your dinner yoursel,’ said the woman. ‘Fasting’s ill for a’body, especially for the like of you. Eh, but you’re red een, Mrs. Stapylton! Him and you have had a little tiff afore he left.’
‘No, indeed—nothing of the sort,’ said Isabel, indignantly. ‘And I don’t want anything, thank you. I shall not want anything till Mr. Stapylton comes back.’