Mary soon grew weary of looking at the many paintings which lined the walls of the galleries; she wished they would go back to the pretty rooms downstairs, where the music was playing and the young folks were dancing. She had enjoyed that. She tried to force a smile of interest to her lips as the old Duke described the subjects on the canvases before them. He soon perceived her weariness, however, and calling to Mrs. Dunlop, who was being bored beyond measure, as she told her friends wearily, he requested her to show Miss Campbell the gardens by moonlight, to which she gladly assented. Quickly they descended the broad staircase, and slowly wended their way across the large drawing-room. Mrs. Dunlop took her young charge to the large window and waved her fat hand toward the magnificent view which lay stretched before them. “Isn’t it grand, Mary?” she observed lightly. It was an old story to her. Spying an old friend across the room, she excused herself to Mary and told her to enjoy herself, then smilingly left her to her own devices. After admiring the somber beauty of Edinburgh Castle, Mary perceived the flowing fountain which splashed tunefully below her in the garden. She stepped out[230] on the balcony, a smile of pleasure lighting up her sweet face. For a while she stood listening to the rhythmic fall of the water, blissfully unconscious of the presence of the unseen watcher. Suddenly before her startled vision there sprang the form of the gypsy. With a cry of alarm Mary stepped back and was about to enter the room, when a voice calling her by name arrested her wondering attention. “Wait, Mary Campbell!” hissed the voice of the gypsy.
Mary turned and looked into the white face gazing up at her so defiantly, and she recognized the girl to whom she had tossed the money. Suddenly she gave a gasp of astonishment. “Jean Armour!” she exclaimed incredulously.
“Aye, Jean Armour,” repeated the gypsy. “Come down to me; I must have a word with you alone,” she whispered sibilantly.
Mary gave a quick look around. Mrs. Dunlop was still deep in her gossip, and Robert was nowhere to be seen. She walked to the end of the balcony and found the steps. Quickly she reached the bottom, and going to Jean took her two hands in hers and shook them warmly. She was so glad to see anyone from Mossgiel, friend or foe.
Jean regarded her advance with sullen suspicion. “Two years ago I was an invited guest here at Athol Castle,” she sneered bitterly, “while you were a barefooted dairymaid in Mossgiel. Now look at us. You[231] are the lady and I am an outcast, singing on the streets for my daily bread.”
Mary looked at her in amazement. “But what has happened?” she asked wonderingly.
“My father has turned me into the street,” answered Jean dully.
“Had ye done wrong?” inquired Mary timidly.
Jean laughed mirthlessly. “Wrong?” she repeated, “aye, if refusing to marry an old man I detested be wrong.”
“An’ your father turned ye out for that?”
“For that,” she replied stonily, “and because I refused to give up Robert Burns.”
“But—but ye gave him up long ago, Jean, of your own free will,” faltered Mary, an awful fear clutching at her heart. “An’ your father wrote Robert,” she continued breathlessly, “that ye willingly, gladly renounced all claims on him, that ye even hated his name, an’ that ye hoped never to see or hear o’ him again.”
A look of hatred spread over the face of the other. “My father lied when he wrote that,” she cried with bitter intensity, “for I told him I would never renounce my marriage to Robert, irregular though it was, and I never will. He is my husband,” and she glared defiantly at the shrinking girl, who was looking at her with searching, frightened eyes. For a moment the poor child stood there like a lifeless figure as the words stamped themselves[232] one by one on her bewildered brain and sent it reeling into darkness and vacancy. She felt sick and dizzy. There was a rushing sound in her ears, the garden swung round dizzily before her eyes, yet she stood still, speaking no word, although a quiver of agony passed over her pallid face.
“Oh, Robert, my love, have I lost ye again?” she thought dully. “I knew it was only a dream, too sweet to last.” There was a choking sensation in her throat, but she did not weep. As in a horrid dream she heard the sharp metallic voice hissing in her ear, “He is my husband, Mary Campbell. You must give him up to me.” She roused herself out of the lethargy into which she had fallen, and unclasping her hands, she wearily pushed back her curls from her brow and fixed her large pathetic eyes on Jean, who instinctively shrank back before the speechless despair of that helpless gaze. “But ye have no claim on Robbie noo, Jean,” she faltered slowly, “since your irregular marriage was publicly dissolved.” She paused and her pale lips quivered. “Why have ye come here noo to disturb him?” she asked with infinite pathos. “He is happy, so happy noo. Dinna destroy that happiness; go awa’; leave him to me. Ye took him from me once; dinna separate us again.” Her voice broke and a hard sob choked her utterance. A great pity welled up in Jean’s heart for the stricken child, but she steeled herself against it and remained sullenly[233] quiet. Presently Mary spoke again. “I hae nothing in this world, Jean, and I love him so,” she said with dreamy wistfulness, “better than life itsel’. We have loved each ither for years, an’ that love has grown stronger an’ stronger as each year passed by, till noo it’s part o’ my very being.” Her voice rose to passionate pleading. “Oh, what is your weak fancy compared to such a love, Jean Armour?” she asked piteously. “Oh, I tell you I canna give him up to you again.” She sank down convulsively on the high-backed bench under the balcony, her form quivering with low heart-breaking sobs. Tears of sympathy slowly filled Jean’s eyes as she watched the grief-stricken girl before her, but with an angry frown she hardened her heart and forced herself to think of her own wrongs and pitiable condition.
“You must give him up!” she answered harshly, “and to-night.” She paused a moment to watch the brilliant crowd within the drawing-room, passing and repassing each other with slow, stately bearing as they walked with ease and grace through the dignified measures of the minuet. By and by she turned to the drooping form and spoke again. “My God, girl, don’t you suppose I too love him!” she exclaimed passionately. “Why have I tramped mile after mile, half starving, subjected to all kinds of insults, struggling to reach here to see him, if it were not for that love?”
[234]
Mary slowly raised her head and looked at her in reproachful sadness. “Your love has only brought him, an’ all of us, sorrow and disgrace,” she said with pathetic simplicity. “He never loved ye, Jean Armour, ye ken that weel.”
Jean winced at the blunt truth, and a quiver of anger passed over her defiant face. “I know that only too well,” she replied bitterly. Then she gave a little mocking laugh, which nevertheless held a suggestion of tears. “You may have his heart, Mary Campbell,” she continued, “but I am what you can never be, his wife and the mother of his bairns.”
“The bairns,” repeated Mary blankly, “are they alive, Jean?”
“Yes, they are alive, thank God!” murmured Jean softly, “that is why I am here, Mary, that is why I must demand my rights, for my bairns’ sake.” Then she continued quickly, feverishly, “Had it not been for them I would have done my father’s bidding, would have forgotten Robert, renounced him utterly, and married the man my father had chosen for me, but I wanted my little ones to have the protection of a father’s name, so I stubbornly refused his commands. After my father had driven me from his door with curses on his lips, I discovered too late that Robert had tried again and again to see me, had even begged my father to allow him to legalize our marriage, and that his overtures were met with scorn and abuse. Then I decided to come to Edinburgh[235] myself to tell Robert the truth and to claim my rights.” She paused defiantly.
Lady Glencairn upon her return to the drawing-room had missed Mary, and upon learning from Mrs. Dunlop that she was upon the balcony, she sauntered slowly in that direction. As she stepped through the window she heard the low murmur of voices, and looking down perceived with amazement the young girl seated below her in company with a fantastically-dressed gypsy. Suddenly, with a start, she recognized the voice of Jean Armour. Hastily concealing herself behind a large marble pillar she listened in growing wonder, her face becoming hard and repellent, to the direful confession of her god-daughter.
“I arrived in Edinburgh after a month of hardships,” continued Jean with suppressed excitement, “and to-night I saw him in all his prosperity entering the castle like a king, looking so handsome, so contented, and so very happy.”
“Yes, he is happy noo,” replied Mary softly. “Happier than he’ll e’er be on earth again, perhaps,” and she closed her eyes wearily.
For a moment there was silence, broken only by the monotonous hum of voices and the faint twanging of the harp from within the drawing-room. Presently Mary opened her eyes and spoke again.
“Ye maunna blame Robert for anything at a’, Jean,” she said loyally. “He thought the bairns were[236] dead, an’ he believed your father’s words, but noo, when he kens a’, he will do his duty nobly for his bairns’ sake.” She smiled bravely into the eager face of the other. “Ye have the right to him, Jean, I see that noo,” she continued sadly, “an’—an’ forgive my rude and unkind words to ye just noo,” and gently she held out her little hand.
Jean took it tenderly in her own. “What will you do now, where will you go?” she asked with a feeling of remorse.
“I shall go back to Colonel Montgomery’s,” replied Mary, in a sad, spiritless voice, from which all the life seemed to have fled, “where I can see my friends sometimes. Mistress Burns loves me, an’ I—I may see Robbie, if only from the window as he passes. It willna harm anyone.” She looked at Jean in a pleading, timid manner, while her mouth quivered pathetically, but she forced a wan smile to her pale lips and then slowly turned and walked toward the stairway. As she mounted the bottom step Jean ran quickly to her side and clasped her hand impulsively.
“Mary, I’m so sorry for you,” she said pityingly, “but I’m doing it for my bairns’ sake, ye ken that.”
“I understand, Jean,” answered Mary simply, “I dinna blame ye.” She leaned back against the marble balustrade. “But, oh, it’s hard, bitter hard,” she murmured brokenly; “if I could only die here and[237] noo.” She stretched out her hands with a sort of wild appeal. “Oh, Robbie, my darlin’,” she exclaimed in a sobbing whisper, “how can I tell ye, how can I break your heart? I thought ye had drunk your cup o’ misery empty, but the dregs are yet to be drained.”
............