“The Lord help the man, he maun dree his weird! It’s a sair warl for him.” Then, turning to the chief who stood as if cut from stone, she said:
“Gae awa’, you, tae Colonel Pelham,” she commanded him, “tae the big white hoose doon the way yonder, and tell him the woman’s deid.” But her speech was beyond the Indian till, baffled, she beckoned him into the house.
“Come,” she said, and took him into the room where the dead woman lay. At once the chief understood. Down the driveway she went with him and pointed the way to the “big white house” of Colonel Pelham. Without a word he was off on his errand, on the long swinging trot of the Indian, while the old nurse returned to the man who still lay upon the steps, too spent to move. She bent over him, shook him awake, and said, “Come, man, get ye in till y’re bed. Ye’re no fit for onything.” He turned dull eyes upon the house.
“Jinny,” he mumbled, “my—your—Marion—she is better?”
“Aye, she’s better,” said the old nurse calmly. “She’s beyond all ill.” Jinny was entirely preoccupied with grief over the death of the woman she had nursed as a babe and whose babes she had nursed as well.
The man staggered to his feet and held by the verandah post, struggling for breath.
“Jinny,” he gasped. “No—no—you don’t—mean—she’s——” He could get no further.
“Aye, she’s deid. Gude save us a’, my sweet lassie is deid.” The old woman threw her apron over her head and burst into wailing. “Aye, the puir lassie, the puir lassie! Ma bonnie wee lamb! She’s awa’, she’s awa’.”
The man stared stupidly upon the rocking, wailing figure at his feet.
“Dead! Dead!” he said in a harsh voice. “It’s a lie. It’s a lie! She wouldn’t die that way. She wouldn’t die without a word to me.”