“You know very well that you are doing me a great deal of injustice,” he said, sadly; “but I will not defend myself. If I had but known that you were here—but I did not know.”
“I never heard that you took much trouble to ask,” said Jeanie; “and wherefore should you? You were aye far above me. There was a time when I was silly, and thought little of that; but I ken better now.”
“I don’t know that I am above anybody; there are many people that are above me,” he said, with a sigh, and a look of dreary vacancy beyond her, which deeply provoked yet interested the girl in spite of herself.
“Ay,” she said, “you will feel for other folk now; you will ken what it means now. But I’ve naething to say to you, Maister Glen, and I’m wishing ye nae harm. A’s lang ended that ever was between you and me.”
“Are you sure of that, Jeanie?” he said.
It was not in Rob’s nature to let any one escape from him upon whom he had ever had a hold.
“Ay, I’m sure of it,” she cried; “and you are but a leer and a deceiver if you dare speak to me in that voice, after what I’ve seen with my ain een—after the way I’ve seen ye with Miss Margret! Oh, she’s ower good for you, ower innocent for one that hasna a true heart! Last night, no further gane, I saw you here with my bonnie young lady; and now, if I would let you, that’s how you would speak to me.”
“Jeanie,” he said, “it’s all just that you are saying; but how do you know how I was led to it? You could not see that. She came out, in her trouble, to cry here, and I was here when she came. Could I see her cry and not try to comfort her? I don’t pretend to be strong, to be able to resist temptation. I should have thought of you, but you were not here; I did not know where you were. And she, poor child, was in great need of some one to rest upon, some one to console her. That was how it came about. You know me. I did not forget you; but she was there, and in want of some one to be a comfort to her. I am confessing to you like a Catholic to his priest; for all that you say there is nothing between us now.”
“Oh!” she cried, “speak to me no more, Rob Glen. I canna tell what’s ill and what’s well, when you talk and talk, with that voice that would wile a bird from the tree.”
“Why do you find such fault with my voice?” he said, coming a little nearer. “It may be as you say, Jeanie, that all is ended; but, at least, your good heart will do me justice. You were away, and here was a poor young creature in sore trouble. Say I’ve been foolish, say my life has gone away from me into another’s hands; but do not say that I forgot my Jeanie; that I never did—that I will never do.”