“Aye,” she said, a little wistfully. And the saying cheered me. For this river way was not the girl’s straight road homeward, and it came to me that mayhap Mary Gordon had wished to meet and comfort me in my sorrow.
“My father is abroad, we know not well where,” she said, “or doubtless he would gladly support you in the way that you have chosen. Perhaps your way is not my way, but it must be a good way of its kind, the way of a man’s conscience.”
She reached down a hand to me, which I took and pressed gratefully enough.
It was then that we came in sight of the white house of Drumglass sitting above the water-meadows. At the first glimpse of it the Lady Mary drew away her hand from mine.
“Is it true,” she said, looking at the blue ridges of Cairnsmore in the distance, “that which I have been told, that you are to wed a daughter of that house?”
I inclined my head without speech. I knew that the bitterest part of my punishment was now come upon me.
“And did you come straight from the Earlstoun to offer her also your position, your well-roofed manse, your income good as that of any laird?”
We had stopped in a sheltered place by the river where the hazel bushes are many and the gorse grows long and rank, mingling with the bloom and the fringing bog-myrtle.
“My Lady Mary,” said I, after a pause, “I offered her not anything. I had nothing to offer. But in time of need she let me see the warmth of her heart and—I had none other comfort!”
“Then upon this day of days why are you not by her side, that her love may ease the smart of your bitter outcasting?”