“Thank the Lord,” said the old lady, “that delivered you from that temptation.”
“That saved your life, you mean. But it wasn’t the Lord. It was Bob, your son, who couldn’t stand and see it after all.”
“Thank the Lord still more,” she said, “that wakened the old heart, his own natural heart, in my boy.”
“Well that is one view to take of it,” said Lew. “I should have thought it more sensible, however, to thank the Lord, as you say, for your own life.”
Mrs Ogilvy rose up. The keys of her treasures fell to the ground. What were they to her at this moment? “And what is my life to me,” she said, “that I should think of it instead of better things? Do you think it matters much to me, left here alone an auld wreck on the shore, without a son, without a companion, without a hope for this world, whether I live or die? Man!” she cried, laying a hand on his arm, “it’s not that I would give it for my Robbie, my own son, over and over and over! but I would give it for you. Oh, dinna think that I am making a false pretence! For you, laddie, that are none of mine, that would have killed me last night, that would kill me now for ever so little that I stood in your way.”
“No!” he said in a hoarse murmur, “no!”—but she saw still the gleam of the devil in his eye, that murderous sense of power—that he had but to put forth a hand.
“If it would not be for the sin on your soul—you that are taking my son from me—you might take my life too, and welcome,” she said.
She could not stand. She was restless, too, and could not bear one position. She sank upon her chair again, and, lifting up the keys, laid them down upon the open escritoire, where they lay shining between the two, neither of use nor consequence to either. Lew began to pace up and down the room, half abashed at his own weakness, half furious at his failure. She might have millions—but he could not fish them out of her drawers, not he. That was no man’s work. He could have killed her last night, and he could, she divined, kill her now, with a sort of satisfaction, but not rob her escritoire.
“Mr Lew, will you leave me my son?” she said.
“No: I have nothing to do with it; he comes of his own will,” cried the other. “You make yourself a fine idea of your son. Do you know he has been in with me in everything? Ah! he has his own scruples; he has not mine. He interfered last night; but he’d turn out your drawers as soon as look at you. It’s a pity he’s not here to do it.”