He was interrupted by the entrance of a girl.She had a shawl over her head, notwithstanding it was summer weather, and crept in hesitatingly, as if she were not quite at one with herself as to her coming purchase.Approaching a boy behind the counter on the opposite side of the shop, she asked for something, and he proceeded to serve her.Robert could not help thinking, from the one glimpse of her face he had got through the dusk, that he had seen her before.Suddenly the vision of an earthen floor with a pool of brown sunlight upon it, bare feet, brown hair, and soft eyes, mingled with a musk odour wafted from Arabian fairyland, rose before him: it was Jessie Hewson.
'I ken that lassie,' he said, and moved to get down from the counter on which he too had seated himself.
'Na, na,' whispered the manufacturer, laying, like the Ancient Mariner, a brown skinny hand of restraint upon Robert's arm--'na, na, never heed her.Ye maunna speyk to ilka lass 'at ye ken.--Poor thing! she's been doin' something wrang, to gang slinkin' aboot i'
the gloamin' like a baukie (bat), wi' her plaid ower her heid.
Dinna fash wi' her.'
'Nonsense!' returned Robert, with indignation.'What for shouldna Ispeik till her? She's a decent lassie--a dochter o' James Hewson, the cottar at Bodyfauld.I ken her fine.'
He said this in a whisper; but the girl seemed to hear it, for she left the shop with a perturbation which the dimness of the late twilight could not conceal.Robert hesitated no longer, but followed her, heedless of the louder expostulations of MacGregor.
She was speeding away down the street, but he took longer strides than she, and was almost up with her, when she drew her shawl closer about her head, and increased her pace.
'Jessie!' said Robert, in a tone of expostulation.But she made no answer.Her head sunk lower on her bosom, and she hurried yet faster.He gave a long stride or two and laid his hand on her shoulder.She stood still, trembling.
'Jessie, dinna ye ken me--Robert Faukner? Dinna be feart at me.
What's the maitter wi' ye, 'at ye winna speik till a body? Hoo's a' the fowk at hame?'
She burst out crying, cast one look into Robert's face, and fled.
What a change was in that face? The peach-colour was gone from her cheek; it was pale and thin.Her eyes were hollow, with dark shadows under them, the shadows of a sad sunset.A foreboding of the truth arose in his heart, and the tears rushed up into his eyes.
The next moment the eidolon of Mary St.John, moving gracious and strong, clothed in worship and the dignity which is its own defence, appeared beside that of Jessie Hewson, her bowed head shaken with sobs, and her weak limbs urged to ungraceful flight.As if walking in the vision of an eternal truth, he went straight to Captain Forsyth's door.
'I want to speak to Miss St.John, Isie,' said Robert.
'She'll be doon in a minit.'
'But isna yer mistress i' the drawin'-room?--I dinna want to see her.'
'Ow, weel,' said the girl, who was almost fresh from the country, 'jist rin up the stair, an' chap at the door o' her room.'
With the simplicity of a child, for what a girl told him to do must be right, Robert sped up the stair, his heart going like a fire-engine.He had never approached Mary's room from this side, but instinct or something else led him straight to her door.He knocked.
'Come in,' she said, never doubting it was the maid, and Robert entered.
She was brushing her hair by the light of a chamber candle.Robert was seized with awe, and his limbs trembled.He could have kneeled before her--not to beg forgiveness, he did not think of that--but to worship, as a man may worship a woman.It is only a strong, pure heart like Robert's that ever can feel all the inroad of the divine mystery of womanhood.But he did not kneel.He had a duty to perform.A flush rose in Miss St.John's face, and sank away, leaving it pale.It was not that she thought once of her own condition, with her hair loose on her shoulders, but, able only to conjecture what had brought him thither, she could not but regard Robert's presence with dismay.She stood with her ivory brush in her right hand uplifted, and a great handful of hair in her left.
She was soon relieved, however, although what with his contemplated intercession, the dim vision of Mary's lovely face between the masses of her hair, and the lavender odour that filled the room--perhaps also a faint suspicion of impropriety sufficient to give force to the rest--Robert was thrown back into the abyss of his mother-tongue, and out of this abyss talked like a Behemoth.
'Robert!' said Mary, in a tone which, had he not been so eager after his end, he might have interpreted as one of displeasure.