It was some days after this before Isabel actually ventured out upon the braes. One afternoon, standing in the garden, seeing nobody near, a forlorn impulse seized her to visit the birch tree on the braes, which had{107} been so often their trysting-place. Looking up and looking down, the white roads seem to her to extend for miles on every side, without a single passenger upon them. Nobody, then, could criticise or blame her for that sick movement of her heart. Isabel went in softly, feeling her circumstances now too solemn to permit her to run out with a shawl round her as she had once done—and put on her bonnet. And then, with a thrill of excitement, took her way up the hill. Either its steepness or some strange expectation took away her breath. The braes were changed from what they had so lately been. The ferns were crumpled up by the first touch of frost, and tinged yellow. The heather bells were all dry and dead, with the colour and life gone out of them, like so many immortelles. And the turf was wet under Isabel’s feet. The great heather bushes caught her dress, and sprinkled her with showers of rain-drops. She was cold, and her heart sunk within her. Was it maidenly to come and look for him here when he did not seek her? Was it becoming her bereavement to be able now to think of him, to remember anything about the birch, and all the foolish words that had been said under it? She put her arm softly, almost with a sense of guilt, round its silvery stem. There were only young trees on the braes, and this little lady of the woods with its long locks waving, and its graceful, slender stem, was like Isabel. He had said so, moved by the sentiment which sometimes makes the dullest mind poetic. She thought of that as she put her arm round it, and leaned her cheek against the silvery bark. Moved by her touch, the branches dropped a little shower of rain over her. Were they tears? She wept, too, leaning upon her woodland likeness.

‘It is liker me now—far liker me now—for I’m alone! alone!’ said Isabel; and with a pang of exquisite anguish could not tell which she was mourning for—her dead Margaret or her lost love.

But tears will not flow continually, however full the heart may be. They had all dried out of her eyes after a few minutes, and she stood still leaning against the tree, gazing out once more upon that familiar landscape, and wondering if she was to see nothing for ever and ever but the still loch and the roads that stretched away so long and wistful up to the sky on one side, and away to the Clyde on the other, without a living creature upon them to break the stillness—when she heard behind her a rustle as of someone coming. She dared not turn her head to see whom it was, but the sound made her heart thrill and beat with a wild excitement she could not control.{108}

Then, suddenly, an arm was put round her, and a voice sounded in her ear. She had known it must be so. A flood of satisfaction came into her heart. ‘I thought I was never to see him more!’ she said to herself without turning her face to him. But he had come at last, and her mind for the moment required no more.

‘It was a long time before I could make sure that this black figure in a bonnet was you,’ he said, as if they had parted an hour before; ‘I have been gazing and wondering for five minutes who it could be. I ought to have thought of the change of dress.’

Was this all he had to say to her after ‘what had happened?’ Isabel’s heart shrank, with a sense of sudden chill, within her breast.

‘I came out because my heart was sore,’ she faltered. ‘I cannot tell why; I thought I would like to see it again.’

‘Not to see me?’ said Stapylton, coming round where he could see her face.

‘If you had cared for that you might have come before,’ said Isabel, with a little movement of displeasure. How different it was from the conversation she had dreamed of!—the soft words, the tender pity, the assurances of his love.

‘Yes, among all those women that are constantly about you,’ he said, ‘your stepmother, and that old witch Miss Catherine—to see you coddled and kissed and mumbled over! No, Isabel; if I could have had you all to myself, as I have now——’

‘And you never thought. Maybe she wants me sitting there her lane? Oh, Horace! I would not have studied my own pleasure if you had been in trouble.’

‘Well, never mind,’ he said. ‘Of course I am not so good as you are; if I were to show myself so gentle, and patient, and unselfish, it would be taking your r?le. But we must not quarrel now we have met. You are pale, my darling. They have been shutting you up indoors and preaching you to death.’

‘Do you think there is nothing else to make me pale?’ said Isabel, moved once more by a pang of disappointment.

‘Don’t let us speak of that. Why should we dwell on such gloomy subjects?’ said Stapylton. ‘Change of thought is as necessary as change of scene; and, besides, I have other things to tell you of. It is weeks now since I have been able to get near you. Don’t let us be unkind and miserable now that we have met at last.’

Isabel had no answer to make. She was stupified by his tone; and yet how could she, loving him as she did, tell herself that he was heartless? Her startled soul{109} paused and stood still for a moment, and then she said to herself that this must be the way folk thought in England, the custom of the bigger, greater world. No doubt it was only in an out-of-the-way corner like Loch Diarmid that there was time to dwell upon personal grief. She dried her eyes hastily with a furtive hand, and half-upbraided herself with self-indulgence. But she could not reply.

‘I am not very cheerful, either,’ he said. ‘I want you to comfort me, Isabel. I have heard from home since I saw you last, and I have no further excuse to make. I fear I shall have to go away.’

‘To go away!’ cried Isabel, feeling as if the sky had suddenly darkened, and all comfort had gone out of the earth.

‘It is very hard upon me,’ he said, ‘just when I might have had you a little more to myself. But I am not my own master, and the folks at home must be obeyed.’

What could she answer? So much in need of pity, and comfort, and soothing, as she was, so unprepared to encounter any new blow! She gave a little gasp as for breath, leaning again upon the birch-tree. And once more the chill tears from its long drooping branches came down upon them like a shower. Stapylton sprung aside with a little impatience.

‘Hallo!’ he said; ‘mind what you’re about!’ And then, after a pause, ‘Well, it appears you have nothing to say!’

‘What can I say?’ said poor Isabel, shivering with agitation and pain. ‘If you must go, Mr. Stapylton, it cannot matter what I think or what I say.’

‘I knew it would be like that,’ he cried; ‘I knew you would take it as an offence. But, Isabel, look here; I have been dangling after you for more than a year. You are quite willing I should hang about and wait for you here; and perhaps you would let me come down to the cottage and see you, for anything I can tell, now. But as that is all the satisfaction I have ever got, or am likely to get——’

‘What satisfaction would you have?’ said Isabel, under her breath.

‘What satisfaction would I have? that is a charming question to put to me after all that has passed between us. Just look here, Isabel; if it had not been for your ridiculous scruples, think what a different position I should have been in. I’d have written home a penitent letter, saying I was very sorry, and all that, and that I was married, and all about it. There would have been a flare-up, of course; but what could they have done? Whereas, now, what can a fellow say? I cannot moon{110} on here for another six months, or another year, or perhaps more than that. Neither my people, nor anybody’s people, would listen to it for a moment. When I speak plainly you are affected; and yet it is all your own fault.’

‘If I look like that to him, what must I look to other folk?’ Isabel said to herself. Her pride was not roused, but broken down. Even the thought of answering him was absent from her mind. She had to receive the expression of his will; but what could she reply to it? She had nothing to say.

‘So,’ he continued, after a pause. ‘I am to be left to make the best of it, I suppose. You have no answer to give me even now.’

‘You have asked me no question, Mr. Stapylton,’ said Isabel, faintly. ‘You have but found fault with me. It was never my meaning to keep you hanging on, as you say. What you asked me was impossible&mdas............