“I am glad—glad,” she said. “Ah! this is my warrant for departure. Well do I ken the sign, for I mind when my brother Andrew saw it first. Quintin, dear lad, you will get her yet, and with honour.”
“Come, Jean,” said I, gently as I could, “the air is shrewd. You are ill and weak. Lean on my arm, and I will take you home.”
She looked up at me with dry, brilliant eyes. There was nothing strange about them save that the lids seemed swollen and unnaturally white.
“Quintin,” she made answer, smiling, “it was foolish from the first, was it not, lad o’ my love? Did you ever say a sweet thing to me, like one that comes courting a lass in the gloaming? Say it now to me, will you not? I would like to hear how it would have sounded.”
I was silent. I seemed to have no words to answer her with.
She laughed a little.
“I forgot. Pardon me, Quintin. You are in trouble to-day—deep trouble. I should not add to it. It is I who should say loving things to you. But then—then—you would care more for flouts and anger from her than for all the naked sweetness of poor Jean Gemmell’s heart.”
And the very pitifulness of her voice drew a cry of anger out of my breast. At the first sound of it she stopped and leaned back in my arms to look into my face. Then she put up her hand very gently and patted me tenderly on the cheek like one that comforts a fretful fractious child.
“I vex you,” she said, “you that have overmuch to vex you. But I shall not vex you long. See,” she said, “there is the door. Yonder is my father standing by it. He is looking at us under his hand. There is Jonita, too, and your brother Hob. Shall we go and tell them that this is all a mistake, that there is to be no more between us?—that we are free—free, both of us—you to wed the Lady Mary, I to keep my tryst—to keep my tryst—with Death!”
At the last words her voice sank to a whisper.