The keeper, whose name, in common with most of the population of that district, was also Macpherson, told Robert how this very thing had happened only two years before to the young laird and his own son, who were both very nearly drowned, and explained that an unusual amount of rain must have fallen up in the hills, some sudden and violent downpour, to occasion the spate.
It was long before they dared cease to doubt of Macpherson’s recovery, and when at last he really began to mend, the process was slow and tedious.
As soon as her terrors for Tom were appeased by finding that he was not a whit the worse for his wetting, Mrs. Echalaz took so kindly to the young fellow, who certainly owed his whole misfortune to them, that she waited on him and nursed him as patiently and tenderly as his own mother could have done.
“I could not have believed it was so pleasant to be ill,” he said to her, with a grateful smile, one day when, helped by Robert and Tom, he had come into the sitting-room for the first time; “I shall be spoiled for going back to work.”
They all protested that he need not think of work yet, as he could not so much as walk alone; and many a pleasant day went by in that little sitting-room, where half-drawn blinds made a cool dimness, and an unfamiliar perfume dwelt in the air—attar of roses, perhaps; something quite different, at any rate, from the odor of plain—very plain— cookery and peat smoke to which he was accustomed at the Manse.
The room was like fairyland, with its hundred costly trifles, china ornaments, scraps of Oriental work, curious fans and other nicknacks, photographs and books littered about in prettily-regulated disorder.
Lying there, weak and weary, his eyes dwelt upon it all with vague, unspeculating wonder and faint content. Mrs. Echalaz and Lily too were always so lovely to look at, “a gude sicht for sair een,” their faces so refined, voices so low and gentle, hands so delicately fair; their dress, too, was wonderful and beautiful, like a part of themselves. He felt himself under a deepening spell in their midst; he had never seen things like the things he saw here, nor women like these women.
As for Lily, he was ashamed at all she did for him, but too helpless to protest.
Once, when she saw that he hardly knew how to suffer so much kindness at her hands, she said, rather sadly,
“Except for me, you need not be lying here at all,” and after that he could only hold his tongue, and try to take everything graciously, owning to himself that the least he could do was this; and not owning what he perhaps scarcely knew, that all this kindness would lose its charm if she were no longer the minister. But the more the charm grew upon him the more shy and silent he became with her; and, perversely, the more he longed to see her, or at least to know that she was near, the less dared he raise his eyes or speak a word. And then he felt beyond all hiding that, to part and see her no more would be the bitterest pain he could ever know—such pain as a man must carry to his grave. He knew that he was sorry to be getting strong, and so drawing near the hour he dreaded; and then, because he felt such utter reluctance to return to his old life—the life he would feel to be so desperately lonely henceforth—he resolved to go at once.