“Somebody touched me, on my shoulder,” he said in a very low voice.
“You have had no sleep. Your nerves are excited. Go back, go back, my poor boy, to your bed and sleep.”
“No, never when that has been said against me—never—if there was not another house in the world.”
“Archie, my dear, we must keep our sense and our heads clear. Whoever has done it, must know and be on the watch to escape, and you must see that you must be cleared: it must be made quite plain as the light of day.”
“I will never be cleared,” he said shaking his head. “My father will never say that he was wrong, and how should I find out? I am not clever to be a detective. There are things that are never found out. No, there’s no light of day for me. Aunt Jane will take me in, and I will go to the foundry and work, as he did. But I will never be the man he was,” the boy said with a sort of forlorn pride in the father who had thrown him off. “Mark you, I think maybe you are good as well as bonnie, and far better than the like of us. If I had known sooner, it might have been different. Let me go.”
“Oh boy, boy! you must be cleared, and you won’t stay and do it,” she cried, grasping his arm again.
He unloosed her hands with a certain roughness yet tenderness. “Let me go,” he said. “I will go, there is nobody on earth that can stop me.” He undid the iron bar that held the door with fierce haste, paying no attention to her pleadings, and flung the big door open, letting in the chill morning air, which sped like a messenger unseen swiftly through the hall and up the stairs, and driving Mrs. Rowland back with a chill that went to her heart.
Archie stepped out into the dark world. Over the mouth of the loch where the current of the great river swept its waters in, there was a faint trembling of whiteness, which meant a new day. He did not feel the cold or any shock from it, but instead of hurrying forth as might have been looked for, lingered, standing outside a moment, with his face turned towards that lightness in the east. Evelyn wrapped her shawl more closely round her and followed him, standing upon the step of the door to make a last effort. But he paid no attention to what she said. He stood lingering on the gravel absorbed in his own thoughts. Then he came up to her again close, as if he had for the first time remarked her presence. “Do you think,” he said, “it could be her, to give me heart?” and then without waiting for a reply, he turned away.
Cold and startled and shivering, Evelyn watched his retiring figure till it was lost in the darkness, and then closed the door, with a heart that was fluttering and sick in her breast. He had said many strange things—things which almost made it possible that he was not so innocent as she thought, and yet he was innocent, he must be innocent! She crossed the dark hall with a tremor in her weariness and exhaustion. It needed not the darkness to veil an ethereal spirit. Had Mary been there?