“Jean,” she cried, holding it out to her sister and pointing to the date with shaking finger. “Wull ye look at that noo! Are we both daft? It’s no possible for him to ha’ gotten there before that letter was written to Hester. Look 438 ye, Jean! Look ye! Here ’tis the third day o’ June it was written by his own hand.”
“Count it oot, Ellen, count it oot! Here’s the calendar almanac. Noo we’ll ha’e it. It’s twa weeks since Hester an’ I left an’ she got the letter the day before that, an’ that’s fifteen days––”
“An’ it takes twa weeks mair for a boat to cross the ocean, an’ that gives fourteen days mair before that letter to Hester was written, an’ three days fra’ Liverpool here, pits it back to seventeen days,––an’ fifteen days––mak’s thirty-two days,––an’ here’ it’s nearin’ the last o’ June––”
“Jean! Whan Hester’s frien’ was writin’ that letter to Hester, Richard was just sailin’ fra France! Thank the Lord!”
“Thank the Lord!” ejaculated her sister, fervently. “Ellen, it’s you for havin’ the head to think it oot, thank the Lord!” And now the dear soul wept again for very gladness.
Ellen folded her hands in her lap complaisantly and nodded her head. “Ye’ve a good head, yersel’, Jean, but ye aye let yersel’ get excitet. Noo, it’s only for us to bide in peace an’ quiet an’ know that the earth is the Lord’s an’ the fullness thereof until we hear fra’ Hester.”
“An’ may the Lord pit it in her hairt to write soon!”
While the good Craigmiles of Aberdeen were composing themselves to the hopeful view that Ellen’s discovery of the date had given them, Larry Kildene and Amalia were seated in a car, luxurious for that day, speeding eastward over the desert across which Amalia and her father and mother had fled in fear and privation so short a time before. She gazed through the plate-glass windows and watched the 439 quivering heat waves rising from the burning sands. Well she knew those terrible plains! She saw the bleaching bones of animals that had fallen by the way, even as their own had fallen, and her eyes filled. She remembered how Harry King had come to them one day, riding on his yellow horse––riding out of the setting sun toward them, and how his companionship had comforted them and his courage and help had saved them more than once,––and how, had it not been for him, their bones, too, might be lying there now, whitening in the heat. Oh, Harry, Harry King! She who had once crossed those very plains behind a jaded team now felt that the rushing train was crawling like a snail.
Larry Kildene, seated facing her and watching her, leaned forward and touched her hand. “We’re going at an awful pace,” he said. “To think of ever crossing these plains with the speed of the wind!”
She smiled a wan smile. “Yes, that is so. But it still is very slowly we go when I measure with my thoughts the swiftness. In my thoughts we should fly––fly!”