“The fifteenth of this month,” Mrs Ogilvy said; “to-morrow, and then it’ll be fifteen years.”
They sat for a little together saying nothing; and then Susie exclaimed, as if she could not contain herself, “But he’ll come back—I’m just as sure Robbie will come back! He will give you no warning; he was never one for writing. You will just hear his step on the road, and he will be here.”
“That is what I think myself,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
And while they were sitting together silent, there suddenly came into the silence the click of the gate and the sound of a step. And they both started, for a moment almost believing that he had come.
CHAPTER IV.
The continued disappointment, which was no disappointment but only the fall of a fancy, a bubble of fond imagination in which there was no reality at all—happened once more, while these two ladies sat together and listened. And then the shadow of a man crossed the open window—a little man—who, not knowing he was seen, paused to wipe his bald head and recover his breath before he rang the bell at the open door. The house was all open, fearing nothing, the sunshine and atmosphere penetrating everywhere.
“It is Mr Somerville, my man of business. It will only be something about siller,” Mrs Ogilvy said in a low tone.
“I will go away, then,” said Susie. She paused a little, holding her old friend’s hands. “And if it’s any comfort,” she said, “when you’re sitting alone and thinking, to mind that there is one not far away that is thinking too—and believing——”
“It is a comfort, Susie—God bless you for it, my dear——”
“Well, then, there are two of us,” she said, with a smile beaming out of the tearfulness of her face, “and it will be easier when this weary month is past.”