DEATH.
I need not recount the proceedings of the Belgian police; how they interrogated Robert concerning a letter from Mary St.John which they found in an inner pocket; how they looked doubtful over a copy of Horace that lay in his coat, and put evidently a momentous question about some algebraical calculations on the fly-leaf of it.
Fortunately or unfortunately--I do not know which--Robert did not understand a word they said to him.He was locked up, and left to fret for nearly a week; though what he could have done had he been at liberty, he knew as little as I know.At last, long after it was useless to make any inquiry about Miss Lindsay, he was set at liberty.He could just pay for a steerage passage to London, whence he wrote to Dr.Anderson for a supply, and was in Aberdeen a few days after.
This was Robert's first cosmopolitan experience.He confided the whole affair to the doctor, who approved of all, saying it could have been of no use, but he had done right.He advised him to go home at once, for he had had letters inquiring after him.Ericson was growing steadily worse--in fact, he feared Robert might not see him alive.
If this news struck Robert to the heart, his pain was yet not without some poor alleviation:--he need not tell Ericson about Mysie, but might leave him to find out the truth when, free of a dying body, he would be better able to bear it.That very night he set off on foot for Rothieden.There was no coach from Aberdeen till eight the following morning, and before that he would be there.
It was a dreary journey without Ericson.Every turn of the road reminded him of him.And Ericson too was going a lonely unknown way.
Did ever two go together upon that way? Might not two die together and not lose hold of each other all the time, even when the sense of the clasping hands was gone, and the soul had withdrawn itself from the touch? Happy they who prefer the will of God to their own even in this, and would, as the best friend, have him near who can be near--him who made the fourth in the fiery furnace! Fable or fact, reader, I do not care.The One I mean is, and in him I hope.
Very weary was Robert when he walked into his grandmother's house.
Betty came out of the kitchen at the sound of his entrance.
'Is Mr.Ericson--?'
'Na; he's nae deid,' she answered.'He'll maybe live a day or twa, they say.'
'Thank God!' said Robert, and went to his grandmother.
'Eh, laddie!' said Mrs.Falconer, the first greetings over, 'ane 's ta'en an' anither 's left! but what for 's mair nor I can faddom.
There's that fine young man, Maister Ericson, at deith's door; an'
here am I, an auld runklet wife, left to cry upo' deith, an' he winna hear me.'
'Cry upo' God, grannie, an' no upo' deith,' said Robert, catching at the word as his grandmother herself might have done.He had no such unfair habit when I knew him, and always spoke to one's meaning, not one's words.But then he had a wonderful gift of knowing what one's meaning was.
He did not sit down, but, tired as he was, went straight to The Boar's Head.He met no one in the archway, and walked up to Ericson's room.When he opened the door, he found the large screen on the other side, and hearing a painful cough, lingered behind it, for he could not control his feelings sufficiently.Then he heard a voice--Ericson's voice; but oh, how changed!--He had no idea that he ought not to listen.
'Mary,' the voice said, 'do not look like that.I am not suffering.