“There’s justice in everything,” he said, in a tone of good-humour. “I leave that to you.”
Then he went to his room again, carrying with him another armful of Waverleys. Was it perhaps that he would not give himself the chance of thinking? It cheered his mother vaguely, however, to see him with the books. It was not reading for the Sabbath-day; but yet Sir Walter could never harm any man: and more still than that—it was not ill men, men with perverted hearts, that were so fond of Sir Walter. That was Robbie—the true Robbie—not the man that had come from the wilds, that had come through crime and misery, that had run for his life.
She left him a packet of notes next morning before she went to Edinburgh. This must not be taken as meaning too much, for it was one-pound notes alone which Mrs Ogilvy possessed. She was glad to be alone in the train, having stolen into a compartment in which a woman with a baby had already placed herself. She did not know the woman, but here she felt she was safe. The little thing, which was troublesome and cried, was her protection, and she could carry on her own thoughts little disturbed by that sound: though indeed after a while it must be acknowledged that Mrs Ogilvy succumbed to a temptation almost irresistible to a mother, and desired the woman to “give me the bairn,” with a certainty of putting everything right, which something magnetic in the experienced touch, in the soft atmosphere of her, and the frôlement of her silk, and the sweetness of her face, certainly accomplished. She held the baby on her knee fast asleep during the rest of the short journey, and that little unconscious contact with the helpless whom she could help did her good also. And the walk to Mr Somerville’s office did her good. On the shady side of the street it is cool, and the little novelty of being there gave an impulse to her forces. When she entered the office, where the old gentleman received her with a little cry of surprise, she was freshened and strengthened by the brief journey, and looked almost as she had looked when he found her, fearing no evil, in the great quiet of the summer afternoon two days before. He was surprised yet half afraid.
“I know what this means,” he said, when he had shaken hands with her and given her a seat. “You’ve made up your mind, Mrs Ogilvy, to make that dreadful journey. I see it in your face—and I am sorry. I am very sorry——”
“No,” she said; “you are mistaken. I am not going. I came to ask you, on the contrary, after all we settled the other day, to do nothing more——”
“To do nothing more!—I cabled as I promised, and I’ve got the man ready to go out——”
“He must not go,” she said.
“Well—— I think it is maybe just as wise. But you have changed your mind very quick. I will not speak the common nonsense to you and say that’s what ladies will do: for no doubt you will have your reasons—you have your reasons?”
She looked round her, trembling a little, upon the quiet office where nobody could have been hidden, scarcely a fly.
“Mr Somerville,” she said, “you were scarcely gone that day—oh, how long it is ago I know not—it might be years!—you were scarcely gone, when my son came home.”