"Do you not live in the house?" she asked.
"I used to do as I liked, and could be there or with my grandfather. I did mean to be at the House to-night, but my lady has given my room to her maid."
"What! that woman Caley?"
"I suppose so, my lady. I must sleep to-night in the village. If you could, my lady—" he added, after a pause, and faltered, hesitating. She did not help him, but waited. "If you could—if you would not be displeased at my asking you," he resumed—"if you could keep my lady from going farther with that—I shall call him names if I go on."
"It is a strange request," Clementina replied after a moment's reflection. "I hardly know, as the guest of Lady Lossie, what answer I ought to make to it. One thing I will say, however, that, though you may know more of the man than I, you can hardly dislike him more. Whether I can interfere is another matter. Honestly, I do not think it would be of any use. But I do not say I will not. Good-night."
She hurried away, and did not again offer her hand.
Malcolm walked back through the tunnel, his heart singing and making melody. Oh how lovely—how more than lovely, how divinely beautiful—she was! And so kind and friendly! Yet she seemed just the least bit fitful too. Something troubled her, he said to himself. But he little thought that he, and no one else, had spoiled the moonlight for her. He went home to glorious dreams—she to a troubled, half-wakeful night. Not until she had made up her mind to do her utmost to rescue Florimel from Liftore, even if it gave her to Malcolm, did she find a moment's quiet. It was morning then, but she fell fast asleep, slept late and woke refreshed.
CHAPTER LXIII.
CONFESSION OF SIN.
Mr. Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did not, after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more mind and more conscience, and more discomfort in both or either, than his neighbors give him credit for. They may be in the right about him up to a certain point in his history, but then a crisis, by them unperceived, perhaps to them inappreciable, arrived, after which the man to all eternity could never be the same as they had known him. Such a change must appear improbable, and save on the theory of a higher operative power is improbable because impossible. But a man who has not created himself can never secure himself against the inroad of the glorious terror of that Goodness which was able to utter him into being, with all its possible wrongs and repentances. The fact that a man has never, up to any point yet, been aware of aught beyond himself cannot shut Him out who is beyond him, when at last He means to enter. Not even the soul-benumbing visits of his clerical minister could repress the swell of the slow-mounting dayspring in the soul of the hard, commonplace, business-worshiping man, Hector Crathie. The hireling would talk to him kindly enough—of his illness or of events of the day, especially those of the town and neighborhood, and encourage him with reiterated expression of the hope that ere many days they would enjoy a tumbler together as of old; but as to wrong done, apology to make, forgiveness to be sought or consolation to be found, the dumb dog had not uttered a bark.