‘Hide ye! take ye away! Oh, Isabel, has it come to this? Aye, I’ll hide ye—aye, I’ll defend ye!’ cried Jean, roused up to sudden wrath. ‘Trust to me, my bonnie woman. Nae man, were he the king, shall come rampaging here!’
These very words, which expressed the deepest evil Jean could dream of, and which yet were so trifling, so shallow, compared to the facts, awoke Isabel fully to a sense of her position. She rose up, composing herself as best she could.
‘Hush!’ she said. ‘I must go back. I was speaking—like a fool. I have a great deal to do. The only thing is, that you’ll take care of little Margaret; you’ll never let her out of your sight. My bonnie darling! let me kiss her, and I’ll go.’
‘No this night—oh, no this night!’ cried Jean. ‘Ye’ll drop down on the hill, ye’ll be that wearied; it’s enough to be your death.’
‘That would be the best of all!’ said Isabel under her breath. When she was in movement she was not conscious how weary she was; but as she stood thus, with the child holding out its arms to her, with the old home wooing her, with a possibility, it might be, of escape and flight thus presenting itself before her, her limbs ached, her heart failed. But no, no; that which had to be done could be done only by herself.
‘I must be going now,’ she said, faintly. ‘Don’t ask me any questions. Let me kiss her once again. Oh, you’ve been a kind woman to Margaret and me! Promise me that you’ll never—never forsake my little bairn!’
‘Isabel, dinna break my heart. How could I forsake her, the darling, that was born into my very arms?’
‘And you’ll never let her out of your sight?’ said Isabel. She was gone again before Jean could say another word. When she rushed, with the child in her arms, to the door, the young mother was already almost out of call, speeding up the hill-side like a shadow. The sun had set even beyond the western hills, and had been out of sight here at the Glebe for three-quarters of an hour. ‘Though it’s longer light on the other side of the hill, it’ll be dark night before she gets home,’ said Jean to herself. ‘Oh, did I no ay say it was to her destruction she was taking that English lad?’ She stood and watched as long as the retreating figure was visible, with thoughts of rushing after her, of appealing to Miss Catherine or the Dominie, or someone who could aid. ‘But wha can interfere between man and wife?’ Jean said to herself, with homely wisdom, shaking her head as she went back to her fireside with the child who had been thus suddenly dropped into her arms. ‘My wee pet! at least she may be easy in her mind about you,’ she said, with tears, kissing the little creature, who could give no explanation; and thus accepted the mystery on which, for this night at least, it appeared no light could be thrown.
Isabel had reached the middle of her homeward course before she awoke to any sort of consciousness of what was before her. Was it on such another night as this—darker still, more cloudy and stormy—that one man had struck another down, and wrenched from his breast that little token of innocent affection and tragic misery? O God! could it be? Then she saw herself at the opera, with that fatal eye upon her; she recalled the sense of something malign regarding her, of which she had been conscious in the Manse garden the night before the minister’s death. These recollections and impressions came one by one, each thrusting her through with a sharper and a sharper dart. She tried to escape from them—to think what she ought to do. Something there was that must be done. She was going back to him—her husband, her husband’s slayer—to him who had dared to take her into his arms, knowing the awful ghost that stood between them. Isabel hid her face, as if some accusing eye had looked at her, and cried aloud, in the agony of her shame. How was she polluted!—she who was Margaret’s mother and the minister’s wife! He had come to her with that blood on his hand, knowing his own guilt, and plucked her like a flower—taken her in spite of herself—made her his, to bear his name, and bound her to him for ever and ever. She writhed upon that sword as she sat and rocked herself on the dark wayside. It seemed to her as if some cruel, avenging angel—as if God Himself—had put the bitter weapon through her heart, and held it there, despite her struggles, keeping her to a sense of the deepness of her misery, preventing her from thinking rather what she must do. What was she to do? Oh, if she could only think of that question, instead of writhing and aching, and stabbing herself through and through with this!
But the night grew darker, and the wind moaned louder, and Isabel started with a thrill of natural terror. She stood on the highest point of the road, feeling that there was still a choice before her, for one wild moment. She might turn, and fly back to the Glebe even now. She might shut fast the doors, and send for her friends, and barricade herself from the approach of the murderer; her husband’s murderer—that was what he was! She stood with her breath coming in sobs against the wind, all alone in Heaven and earth, to make her decision. Oh! she could so easily gather a body-guard to defend her!—friends that would hold her fast, and her baby, and keep her from all fear. What need had she to go back, to see his dreadful murderer’s face—to be touched by the hands which—— Isabel turned and made a rush downwards on the side of Loch Diarmid to her safe and silent home. Then she paused, and painfully retraced her steps. Her heart was gashed and cut in two by that awful sword, which God would not withdraw for a moment. She was the wife at once of the slayer and the slain. God help her! If she sent for her friends to avenge her husband, would not that be to kill her husband? Kill her husband! She walked up and down like a wild creature on the top of the hill. The clouds seemed to be drooping over her, so near they rolled in their great, tumultuous waves; big drops of rain fell from their skirts, like something cast at her out of the heavens. The storm was rising from Loch Diarmid as if to hunt her before it down to the gloomy shores of Loch Goil. Over there, in the west, there was a pale glimmer that seemed to direct her—where? To him who, no doubt, was now waiting for her—the man whose name she bore—whose wife she was; her first love—her worst enemy. Was she to devote herself to him, loathing him as she did? Was she to denounce him, loving him as she did? What, oh! what—was there no counsel in Heaven or earth?—was she to do?