The next few days Jean was very busy with her preparations for their sojourn at the seaside. The date of their departure was already fixed and it now lacked but a few days before they would bid farewell to Ellisland forever, for Robert had decided to take up his residence in Dumfries when his visit was ended, for the duties of his new office would necessitate his being there the quarter part of his time. As the day of their departure drew near, Robert grew more and more depressed, and day by day he sat in melancholy silence beside the window gazing with unseeing eyes upon the tangled yet graceful wilderness of flowers. Jean watched him in growing fear and anxiety as he sank deeper and deeper into those protracted fits of gloom and depression, and vainly sought to find some reason for the sudden change. He had been so elated at getting his promotion and at the many advantageous changes it would make in their condition—had dwelt with affectionate wonder on Eppy’s kindness in extending to them the invitation to accompany them to Brow, and had seemed to greatly improve in health and spirits for a few days. Then came Gilbert’s letter stating that he had arrived in time to[372] prevent the eviction of the dear ones at home. The letter had plunged him into a state of feverish excitement and restless anxiety, and all day he would sit at the open window, watching with burning eyes the long narrow road that twisted and turned on its way to Mossgiel, straining his eyes eagerly at the approach of any casual traveler who might be passing, then with a look of patient despair, sink back in his chair, pale and listless, his unfocused eyes again gazing into space. One night after he had left his chair and had retired to his bed for the night, looking more haggard than usual, Jean spied on the floor a crumpled paper which had evidently dropped from his nerveless hand. Picking it up, she smoothed it out and found it to be Gilbert’s letter, which she had not seen, as Robert had read it to her and then put it carefully aside. Slowly her gaze wandered over it. Suddenly she gave a great start, for at the bottom of the page this sentence caught her eye: “Mary leaves to-morrow for the Highlands and will pass through Ellisland.” Thoughtfully she put the letter on the chair where he could find it in the morning, and sat down by the cradle of the bairn and gently rocked him till his fretful crying ceased; then she gave herself up to the heart-burning thoughts that filled her mind. She had tried so hard to be patient all these years, she had struggled and struggled to do her duty without a word of complaint, she thought, while bitter tears of patient grief and[373] secret yearning for the love that she knew belonged to another rolled down her sorrowing cheek. She had no word of complaint to make against Robert though, for he had never sought to deceive her once, and there was no feeling of resentment in her heart against the little dairymaid. It was not the child’s fault. It was not the fault of either that they still loved each other. Only Robert might have shown her the letter, she thought with quivering lips; there was no need to keep it from her. She would know it when Mary came to the house, anyway. She might have guessed the reason for his sudden change, she thought, wiping away her tears, only her mind had been so filled with the household preparations for moving that Mary had been quite forgotten. For a while she gently rocked the sleeping child, watching its sweet, flushed face, listening to its soft breathing, and soon all disturbing thoughts slipped away from her troubled mind, and a peaceful, holy calm entered her patient heart and shone through her love-lit eyes. Covering its little form carefully, she carried the cradle into her chamber and placed it within reach of her bed. Then as she disrobed for the night in dreary silence, her eyes fixed on the pale face of her husband, who was tossing and muttering in his sleep, a tender wave of pity swept over her at the thought of the sweet lass who would shortly pass o............