“I will never rest,” she cried at last, “till Lochgair has paid the penalty for this trick upon us. My laddie’s death is at his door!”
Her man said nothing, leading the horse.
“At his door!” she cried more vehemently. “Are you hearing me? He has slain my son in this shameful way as surely as if he had tied the rope himself.”
Her husband made no answer; he found in her words but the thought of one for the time demented, and he walked appalled at the chaos into which the precious edifice of his faith had tumbled. Rudely she plucked his arm and screamed in his ear—
“What will you do to Campbell?”
“To Campbell?” he repeated vaguely. “God forgive him his false hopes and negligence, but it was not he who condemned our son.”
“But for him,” said the woman, “my son would have died like a gentleman, and not like a common thief.”
“I do not understand,” said her husband blankly.
“No, you never understand,” she sneered, “that was ever your failing. Do you think that if I had not the promise of Lochgair, I should let my laddie die upon the gallows? The first of his race! the first of his race! I had brought with me his pistol that he might save himself the scandal of the doomster’s hand,” and she took the weapon from her bosom.
Her husband looked at it, grasped at once the Spartan spirit of her scheme, and swithered between chagrin that it had been foiled, and shame that the sin of self-slaughter should for a moment seem desirable.