“Oh, Paul, Paul!” she cried, “I did not like to see you going out in these shoes this afternoon, and I ken't that something ailed ye.”
“The road to hell suits one shoe as well's another,” said I bitterly; “where the sorrow lies is that ye never saw me go out with a different heart. Mother, mother, the worst ye can guess is no' so bad as the worst ye've yet to hear of your son.”
I was in a storm of roaring emotions, yet her next words startled me.
“It's Isobel Fortune of the Kirkillstane,” she said, trying hard to smile with a wan face in the candle light.
“It was—poor dear! Am I not in torment when I think that she must know it?”
“I thought it was that that ailed ye, Paul,” said she, as if she were relieved. “Look; I got this a little ago on the bleaching-green—this scrap of paper in your write and her name upon it. Maybe I should not have read it.” And she handed me part of that ardent ballad I had torn less than an hour ago.
I held it in the flame of her candle till it was gone, our hands all trembling, and “That's the end appointed for Paul Greig,” said I.
“Oh, Paul, Paul, it cannot be so unco'!” she cried in terror, and clutched me at the arm.
“It is—it is the worst.”
“And yet—and yet—you're my son, Paul. Tell me.”