She smiled up at him through her tears. “I should like to be,” she said softly. Then, because she was truly Scotch, she added, “for your sake, for I love you terribly much; and I am going to lose you.”
A quiver passed through her frame, and her arms gripped him tight. In the self-absorption in his grief and pain he had not thought of hers, nor considered how with his going her whole life would be changed.
“I have been a selfish brute,” he muttered. “I have only thought of my own suffering; but, listen Moira, it is all past; thank God, it is all past. This letter from Mr. Rae holds a confession from Potts (poor Potts! I am glad that Rae let him off): it was Potts who committed the forgery. Now I feel myself clean again; you can't know what that is; to be yourself again, and to be able to look all men in the face without fear or shame. Come, we must go; I must see them all again. Let us to the burn first, and put my face right.”
A moment he stood looking down upon his mother's grave. The hideous thing that had put her far from him, and that had blurred the clear vision of her face, was gone. A smile soft and tender as a child's stole over his face, and with that smile he turned away. As they were coming back from the burn, Martin and the schoolmaster saw them in the distance.
“Bless me, man, will you look at him?” said the master in an awestruck tone, clutching Martin's arm. “What ever is come to him?”
“What's up,” cried Martin. “By Jove! you're right! the Roderick Dhu and Black Douglas business is gone, sure!”
“God bless my soul!” said Maclise in an undertone. “He is himself once more.”
He might well exclaim, for it was a new Allan that came striding up the high road, with head lifted, and with the proud swing of a Highland chieftain.
“Hello, old man!” he shouted, catching sight of Martin and running towards him with hands outstretched, “You are welcome”—he grasped his hands and held them fast—“you are welcome to this Glen, and to me welcome as Heaven to a Hell-bound soul.”
“Maclise,” he cried, turning to the master, “this letter,” waving it in his hand, “is like a reprieve to a man on the scaffold.” Maclise stood gazing in amazement at him.