‘Come! Come in here,’ said Gilbert, dragging him into a room near the doorway.
There, in a voice lowered by reason of the slattern who was on her knees with soap and pail, Jimmy gave him the history of the last three days, from his grandmother’s receipt of his letter to her hurried message of last night.
‘She’s waitin’ ye now in River Street,’ he concluded.
Without further ado they went out of the house together.
What would be the upshot of the next two hours Speid did not know and did not dare to think. Cecilia’s freedom would pass with their passing. Captain Somerville had said in his letter that he was writing to tell her he had summoned him, and his heart stood still as he reflected that, in the face of this, she had hastened her marriage by three days. He was puzzled, dismayed, for he could not guess the full depth of Barclay’s guilt, and the boy beside him knew no more from his grandmother’s message than that the lawyer had cleared Blackport of all available horses. To appear before a woman who had forgotten him on her wedding morning, only to see her give her willing hand to another man—was that what he had come across Europe to do? His proud heart sickened.
Seeing that the night had passed unmolested, Granny Stirk had fallen at daylight into an exhausted sleep; it needed Jimmy’s thunder upon the door to awake her to the fact that Gilbert stood without. She turned the key quickly.
‘Whanland! Whanland!’ was all that she could say as he entered.
Her face was haggard with watching and exertion.
‘Oh, Granny!’ he cried. ‘You have almost killed yourself for me!’
‘Aye, but a’m no deid yet!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘Eh, Laird! but it’s fine to see ye. A’m sweer to let ye gang, but ye canna loss a minute.’