The visit to the Bridge of Allan was anything but a successful expedition on the whole. Little Margaret took cold, and had a trifling illness, which filled her three slaves with trembling terror; and Isabel was so much disposed, with unconscious superstition, to regard this as ‘a judgment’ on her own distracted thoughts and wavering mind, that she was not a pleasant companion to Miss Catherine, who, on the other hand, blamed herself for her over-confidence in her own opinion, for exposing the child to bodily risk and the mother to temptation. Marion made no small amount of critical observations to herself behind their backs, thinking the child’s illness also ‘a judgment.’ ‘Them that flees from the Lord, the Lord’s hand will find them out,’ said Marion to herself. And the little party was not a happy one. They remained until after the anniversary of Mr. Lothian’s murder, of which Miss Catherine was rather disposed to make a solemnity. Poor Isabel, with her heart still trembling for her child, and still suffering from the sharp assault of the new life which had taken her at unawares, found it difficult enough to force back her thoughts into the channel of the past, and feel all the grief, the heavy weight of recollection that was expected of her.
After the anniversary was over they went home. It was on a brilliant June day—a warm, languid, breathless afternoon, when the steamer once more carried them up Loch Diarmid. Miss Catherine herself looked round her with an anxious air when she first stepped on board, involuntarily feeling that he might be there again way-laying them. Isabel did not look for him, but an excitement which she could not conquer took possession of her. It seemed to herself that she was coming home to wait for him, and that, sooner or later, he must come to the place he knew so well to disturb her life. The Lady of the Manor recognised group after group, and speculated with Marion, as there was no satisfaction to be got from Isabel, upon their different errands. ‘There’s John{222} Campbell has been settling his son in Glasgow,’ she said. ‘I hope it will not turn the lad’s head. They’re a very pushing family. But I can’t tell what the smith’s wife should have to do so often in Maryburgh, wasting her time and spending her siller. Marion, is that Archibald Smeaton I see there at the other end of the boat? Go and ask him if the queys are all sold, and what price they brought; and here!—listen—ye can ask him,’ said Miss Catherine, aside into Marion’s ear, ‘if yon Englishman is still about the Loch.’
While Marion went upon this commission there was a momentary pause in Miss Catherine’s talk—partly because Isabel was unresponsive, and partly because she was anxious as to the answer which might be returned to the last question. But her eyes were not the less busy scanning the shores of the Loch with that strange interest which a local notability takes in every symptom of change that may have become visible in his or her absence. She gave a sudden exclamation at one point as they went on, and seized upon Isabel’s arm, forcibly calling her attention.
‘Look at Ardnamore!’ cried Miss Catherine, with a gasp of surprise. Isabel started and lifted her eyes. The house was all open to the rays of the setting sun, the very door was standing wide open, and every appearance of inhabitation was about the place. But what was most wonderful of all was the apparition of a white figure fully revealed in the intense light, standing on the green clearing of the lawn. The trees were all so thick around, and the yellow, slanting sunset shone so full upon the green slope and the one figure on it, that it was difficult to pass it without notice. All the windows were lit up with a glow as of illumination; the green trees were almost reddened by the rays; the white walls of the house blazed with intensity of tone; and the one woman stood in the midst of it all, looking out with a certain wistful, lingering patience in her attitude. Perhaps imagination only conferred upon this white figure, which was too distant to be seen, the qualities of expectation and patience. But the whole scene struck the travellers with a shock of surprise.
‘And no one ever told me a word about it,’ Miss Catherine said, with indignation. ‘Can he have had the sense to let the house—or can they have come back? but then who was that?’
‘It was Ailie,’ said Isabel.
‘It was no such thing,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Ailie, indeed! My dear, you are thinking of something else, and you have not looked at her. That is the figure of a gentlewoman. They must have woke up to their{223} interests at last, and let the house. An English family, I would not wonder. But even an Englishwoman can have no need to put on a moonstruck look like that.’
‘You are speaking of my wife,’ said someone at Miss Catherine’s ear.
Like most people who live among their inferiors, she had a way of expressing her sentiments without any constraint of her voice or concealment of her opinion. She was a person of importance, and she was very well aware of the fact; consequently she started, and turned round, not well pleased, to ask the intruder what he meant by thrusting himself into private conversation; but was struck dumb, and all the strength taken out of her for the moment, to find Mr. John himself standing by her side. Isabel was roused and startled too. It was, indeed, her little cry of recognition which persuaded Miss Catherine that the apparition was real and undeniable.
‘John Diarmid!’ she cried, with a voice half choked with wonder and curiosity; and then made a dead pause, looking at him with a surprise too great for speech.
‘You must beware how you speak of my wife,’ he said. ‘Yes, we have come home. I have brought her home—and she is no longer Ailie, but my wife. If you would be a friend to either of us, you might show an example to others, and not lead the way to trouble.’
‘Trouble—what trouble?’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and why should I be a friend to you, John Diarmid, or set anybody an example to do you pleasure?’
‘Why should you be a foe?’ he said.
And then they both paused, and looked at each other. Mr. John’s appearance had changed. It was nearly three years since he had left Loch Diarmid with his wife; and the wild look of passion and excitement which had marked the prophet had died out of his face. But his appearance was more strange to homekeeping eyes than it had been even when his face was lighted up with that glance which was half-insanity. He had acquired the foreign air which in those days was given by a beard; and his dress, too, was foreign; and there was about him that indescribable look which is not English, which has come to be conventionally identified with the conspirator and revolutionary. He had a great cloak on his arm—a Spanish cloak capable of being thrown around him after a fashion not impossible in those days, though now identified with, at the least, a Byronic hero. His dark face, so much as could be seen of it in the forest of dark hair and darker beard, was more like that of an Italian than a Scotchman; his aspect was that of a man full of weighty cares and responsibilities. The{224} wild inspiration of his supposed mission had gone from him; but it was not only that he had lost that: something also there was, which the keen-sighted spectators perceived without understanding, which he had acquired. He looked at Miss Catherine without flinching, but with no excitement, meeting her eye calmly, and repeating what he had already said.
‘Why should you be a foe? I am none to you. You might be a protection to my wife. Am I to understand that my sins have been such that you will not forget what is past, and give your countenance to her? It might be a comfort to her,’ he said with a suppressed sigh.
‘I cannot see what other protection your wife wants, John Diarmid, when you are here.’
‘But I am not likely to be here,’ he said, quietly. ‘I have many things on my hands. I am here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Poor thing! she is alone; her own friends are unlike her now. You saw her standing there——’
‘You have made a lady of her,’ said Miss Catherine, with a half-congratulation, half-reproach.
‘I have made her——’ he said, and paused. ‘No, I have made her nothing; nought of it is my doing. It is another than I that must bear the blame.’
‘Then there is blame to be borne?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘John Diarmid, I know nothing about your history since you’ve been away; but if you’ve been unkind to that poor lass, after making her marry you——’
‘My kinswoman,’ he said, with a faint touch of scorn not distinct enough to be called a sneer, ‘what I have done to her is of little consequence. It is God Who has been unkind to her. Don’t start as if I spoke blasphemy. She can see but one way of working——’
‘Then I suppose,’ said Miss Catherine, vehemently, ‘you’ve given up the trade of prophet for yourself? ............