‘You will find plenty as good as Miss Raeburn,’ she continued. ‘You should show her ladyship that others know what is to their advantage better than herself.’
Gilbert sighed, seeing that his point of view and hers could never meet. Granny Stirk would have understood him, he knew, for she had tasted life; but this frail, gentle creature had reached that sexless femininity of mind which comes after an existence spent apart from men. And he loved her none the less for her lack of comprehension, knowing the loyalty of her heart.
‘You will come back,’ she said, ‘and, maybe, bring a wife who will put the like of Miss Raeburn out of your head. I would like to see it, Gilbert; but Caroline and I are very old, and I think you will have to look for news of us on the stone in the churchyard. There are just the two names to come. But, while we are here, you must tell me anything that I can do for you after you have gone.’
‘I will write to you, ma’am,’ said Speid, his voice a little thick; ‘and, in any case, I mean to ask you a favour before I go.’
She looked at him with loving eyes.
‘I am going to give you my address,’ he said, ‘or, at least, an address that will eventually find me. I am going to ask you to send me word of anything that happens to Miss Raeburn.’
‘You should forget her, Gilbert, my dear.’
‘Oh, ma’am! you surely cannot refuse me? I have no one but you of whom I can ask it.’
‘I will do it, Gilbert.’
It was with this understanding that they parted.