All this time Hamish, standing behind Walter, was making signs to his young mistress, which seemed to no purpose but to increase her perplexity. Hamish shook his shaggy head, and his eyebrows worked up and down. He gesticulated with his arm pointing along the loch. Finally he stepped forward with a sort of desperation.
"I'm saying, Miss Oona, that we're in no hurry. There will always be somebody about that would be glad, real glad, of a visit from you. And as his lordship is a wee disturbed in his mind, and keen to get home, I could just put him up to Auchnasheen—it would take me very little time—and syne come back for you."
Oona stood startled, undecided between the two—alarmed a little by Walter's looks, and much by the significance of the gestures of Hamish, and his eagerness and anxiety.
"I will no be keeping you waiting long at all—oh, not at all. And my lord will be best at home, being a wee disturbed in his mind—and we're in no hurry—no hurry," Hamish insisted, doing his best to place himself between the two.
"Hamish thinks I am mad," said Walter. "I do not wonder. But I am not mad. I want neither home nor anything else—but you. It is come to that—that nobody can help me but you. First one tries expedients," he cried, "anything to tide over; but at last one comes—one comes to the only true—"
"You are speaking very wildly," said Oona. "I don't know what you mean, Lord Erradeen; and Hamish is afraid of you. What is it? We are only simple people—we do not understand."
He dropped her hand which he had held all the time, half, yet only half against her will, for there was something in the way he held it which forbade all idea of levity. She looked at him very wistfully, anxious, not with any offence, endeavouring to put away all prepossession out of her mind—the prejudice in his favour which moved her heart in spite of herself—the prejudice against him, and indignant wonder whether all was true that she had heard, which had arisen from Julia's words. Her eyelids had formed into anxious curves of uncertainty, out of which her soul looked wistfully, unable to refuse help, perplexed, not knowing what to do.
"If you refuse to hear me," he said, "I have no other help to turn to. I know I have no right to use such an argument, and yet if you knew—I will urge no more. It is death or life—but it is in your hands."
Oona's eyes searched into his very soul.
"What can I do?" she said, wondering. "What power have I? How can I tell if it is—true—" she faltered, and begged his pardon hastily when she had said that word. "I mean—I do not mean—" she said confusedly. "But oh, what can I do? it is not possible that I——"