There are times when a great shock paralyses the whole being, and makes it incapable of action; and there are other circumstances under which it stimulates every power, sends the blood coursing to the heart, and fills the mind with such promptitude of despair, as renders thought unnecessary. At this awful moment both these effects were produced on Isabel. She was paralysed. The sight of that terrible token changed her into stone. The convulsive trembling of her figure steadied gradually as she stood by the window looking at that terrible evidence of what had happened to her; and, as it did so, a sudden, swift, indescribable sense of what she had to do swept through her mind—not what she had to suffer; that was swept out of sight for the moment; besides she was dead, and there was no sense of suffering in her; all she was conscious of was what she had to do.
She took the fatal little drawer first, and locked it up in a box of her own, but walked over the pocket-book on the floor in utter unconsciousness, having lost perception of everything that did not concern the one frightful subject-matter of her thoughts. Then, with hasty hands, she put on her bonnet and cloak, and hurried out to{291} little Margaret’s room, leaving Stapylton’s desk open. She took the baby out of Nelly Spence’s arms, and began to put on its out-door dress. She had got over her trembling, but her face was ashy white, paler than Nelly had ever seen any living creature before. ‘Oh, where are ye going? Oh, let me take the wean! Oh, mistress, ye’re no fit to be out of your bed!’ wailed Nelly in her consternation. Isabel made no reply. She was even so far mistress of herself as to be able to smile a ghastly smile, and nod her head at the baby as she put on its wraps. ‘I shall be back before—dinner,’ she said as she went away. ‘Before dinner!’ Could anything be more horrible than to think of the household table, the common daily use and wont, in face of such a tragical conclusion? But Isabel took no note of her own words. She took the child in her arms; she repeated the same explanation to the maid in the kitchen; and, passing out, took the way across the hill to Loch Diarmid. Little Margaret, in her infant unconsciousness, babbled sweetly over her mother’s shoulder, pulling Isabel’s veil and bonnet with her dimpled hands, and smiling radiantly at the unaccustomed pleasure. Her little voice ran on, with now and then a half-articulate word, in broken rills of baby exclamation, wonder, delight, amusement—the little, loving, broken monologue, which is so sweet to kindred ears; and Isabel, without a look round her, without a pause, pressed on. It was a lonely, long, dreary road, over the hill. She had never carried such a burden before, and the baby was lively and happy, and not to be kept quiet. The only conscious thought in the mother’s mind was, Oh, if she would but go to sleep, and relieve the tired arms in which she danced and frolicked. Once or twice Isabel sat down for a moment on the roadside, but dared not prolong her rest, she had so much—so much to do. The early winter twilight was fading when she went in breathless to the Glebe Cottage, and sank, without a word, into the great old high-backed chair in the kitchen. Jean, with joy and wonder, and then with wonder and consternation, rushed forward to take the child, and overwhelmed her with welcome and astonishment. ‘Eh, my wee darling—eh, Isabel, my bonnie woman! Where have ye come from so sudden? There’s nae boat at this hour!’ Jean said in her amaze. And then the delight of the child’s return fortunately occupied her, and gave Isabel a moment’s breathing-time. Breathless, fainting, weary to death, she lay back in the great chair. Her arms ached, her head ached, her heart was panting with the effort for breath. She seemed to require rest only—nothing but rest. The warmth of the fire, the quiet, the familiar objects round her, lulled her{292} as if they had been singing a cradle-song. A confused longing came over her to end here and stay, and go no farther. Alas, how was she ever, ever to retrace that weary, darkling path over the hills!
‘You’ve never walkit all the way?’ cried Jean at last. ‘It’s enough to have killed you, Isabel, my woman! You’re awfu’ white, and ye dinna say a word. Is there anything ails ye? and what has brought ye walking with the wean ower the hills? Eh, I’m feared something’s happened! Bide a moment, my bonnie woman, till I get you a glass of sherry wine!’
The wine restored Isabel a little to herself. It brought back the energy which had begun to fail her. ‘I have brought you Margaret,’ she said. ‘It is nothing. I could have sent Nelly, of course, but it was—pleasanter—I mean I liked better—to bring her myself. She is fond of you—you’ll be very, very good to her—whatever happens!’
‘Oh, Isabel! what should happen?’ cried Jean.
‘One never knows,’ said Isabel, drearily. ‘That is not what I meant to say; I mean, you’ll take great care of my baby; she is all I have. Except for her, what do I care what happens? Nelly will come, you know, with her things. I will send her as soon as I get—home.’
‘But, my bonnie woman, there’s no boat to-night,’ cried Jean. ‘Walk! na, I would never hear of that. Ye canna walk a’ the way to Kilcranion ower the hills.’
‘I must go at once,’ said Isabel. And then, again, the thought, Must she go? came over her. Could not she stay here in her own house, where she had taken refuge? Were there not her old friends, who would arrange everything for her? A sudden sickening of heart came over her; and yet her whole being was so confused, that she was not sure whether it was the mere walk, or what would come after that walk, which overwhelmed her most.
‘Oh, if you would hide me!—Oh, if ye would take me away!’ she cried, in the misery of her soul.
‘Hide ye! take ye away! Oh, Isabel, has it come to this? Aye, I’ll hide ye—aye, I’ll defend ye!’ cried Jean, roused up to sudden wrath. ‘Trust to me, my bonnie woman. Nae man, were he the king, shall come rampaging here!’
These very words, which expressed the deepest evil Jean could dream of, and which yet were so trifling, so shallow, compared to the facts, awoke Isabel fully to a sense of her position. She rose up, composing herself as best she could.
‘Hush!’ she said. ‘I must go back. I was speaking—like a fool. I have a great deal to do. The only thing{293} is, that you’ll take care of little Margaret; you’ll never let her out of your sight. My bonnie darling! let me kiss her, and I’ll go.’
‘No this night—oh, no this night!’ cried Jean. ‘Ye’ll drop down on the hill, ye’ll be that wearied; it’s enough to be your death.’
‘That would be the best of all!’ said Isabel under her breath. When she was in movement she was not conscious how weary she was; but as she stood thus, with the child holding out its arms to her, with the old home wooing her, with a possibility, it might be, of escape and flight thus presenting itself before her, her limbs ached, her heart failed. But no, no; that which had to be done could be done only by herself.
‘I must be going now,’ she said, faintly. ‘Don’t ask me any questions. Let me kiss her once again. Oh, you’ve been a kind woman to Margaret and me! Promise me that you’ll never—never forsake my little bairn!’
‘Isabel, dinna break my heart. How could I forsake her, the darling, that was born into my very arms?’
‘And you’ll never let her out of your sight?’ said Isabel. She was gone again before Jean could say another word. When she rushed, with the child in her arms, to the door, the young mother was already almost out of call, speeding up the hill-side like a shadow. The sun had set even beyond the western hills, and had been out of sight here at the Glebe for three-quarters of an hour. ‘Though it’s longer light on the other side of the hill, it’ll be dark night before she gets home,’ said Jean to herself. ‘Oh, did I no ay say it was to her destruction she was taking that English lad?’ She stood and watched as long as the retreating figure was visible, with thoughts of rushing after her, of appealing to Miss Catherine or the Dominie, or someone who could aid. ‘But wha can interfere between man and wife?’ Jean said to herself, with homely wisdom, shaking her head as she went back to her fireside with the child who had been thus suddenly dropped into her arms. ‘My wee pet! at least she may be easy in her mind about you,’ she said, with tears, kissing the little creature, who could give no explanation; and thus accepted the mystery on which, for this night at least, it appeared no light could be thrown.
Isabel had reached the middle of her homeward course before she awoke to any sort of consciousness of what was before her. Was it on such another night as this—darker still, more cloudy and stormy—that one man had struck another down, and wrenched from his breast that little token of innocent affection and tragic misery? O God! could it be? Then she saw herself at the opera,{294} with that fatal eye upon her; she recalled the sense of something malign regarding her, of which she had been conscious in the Manse garden the night before the minister’s death. These recollections and impressions came one by one, each thrusting her through with a sharper and a sharper dart. She tried to escape from them—to think what she ought to do. Something there was that must be done. She was going back to him—her husband, her husband’s slayer—to him who had dared to take her into his arms, knowing the awful ghost that stood between them. Isabel hid her face, as if some accusing eye had looked at her, and cried aloud, in the agony of her shame. How was she polluted!—she who was Margaret’s mother and the minister’s wife! He had come to her with that blood on his hand, knowing his own guilt, and plucked her like a flower—taken her in spite of herself—made her his, to bear his name, and bound her to him for ever and ever. She writhed upon that sword as she sat and rocked herself on the dark wayside. It seemed to her as if some cruel, avenging angel—as if God Himself—had put the bitter weapon through her heart, and held it there, despite her struggles, keeping her to a sense of the deepness of her misery, preventing her from thinking rather what she must do. What was she to do? Oh, if she could only think of that question, instead of writhing and aching, and stabbing herself through and through with this!
But the night grew darker, and the wind moaned louder, and Isabel started with a thrill of natural terror. She stood on the highest point of the road, feeling that there was still a choice before her, for one wild moment. She might turn, and fly back to the Glebe even now. She might shut fast the doors, and send for her friends, and barricade herself from the approach of the murderer; her husband’s murderer—that was what he was! She stood with her breath coming in sobs against the wind, all alone in Heaven and earth, to make her decision. Oh! she could so easily gather a body-guard to defend her!—friends that would hold her fast, and her baby, and keep her from all fear. What need had she to go back, to see his dreadful murderer’s face—to be touched by the hands which—— Isabel turned and made a rush downwards on the side of Loch Diarmid to her safe and silent home. Then she paused, and painfully retraced her steps. Her heart was gashed and cut in two by that awful sword, which God would not withdraw for a moment. She was the wife at once of the slayer and the slain. God help her! If she sent for her friends to avenge her husband, would not that be to kill her husband? Kill her husband! She walked up and down{295} like a wild creature on the top of the hill. The clouds seemed to be drooping over her, so near they rolled in their great, tumultuous waves; big drops of rain fell from their skirts, like something cast at her out of the heavens. The storm was rising from Loch Diarmid as if to hunt her before it down to the gloomy shores of Loch Goil. Over there, in the west, there was a pale glimmer that seemed to direct her—where? To him who, no doubt, was now waiting for her—the man whose name she bore—whose wife she was; her first love—her worst enemy. Was she to devote herself to him, loathing him as she did? Was she to denounce him, loving him as she did? What, oh! what—was there no counsel in Heaven or earth?—was she to do?
When she arrived at the house Isabel was drenched with the torrent of rain which had swept her before it down the dark slope of the hill. The blast had been so violent, and the feverish strength of excitement was so great in her, that she had made up for all the time she had lost on the summit by the swiftness of the descent. And when she reached home she found that her husband had not yet returned. ‘The boat’s no in yet,’ said the maid from the kitchen; ‘and, oh! mem, but you’re wet; you’ll have time to change your wet things afore the maister can be back.’
‘And where’s the bairn?’ said Nelly, open-mouthed.
‘You must pack up all her things,’ said Isabel, collecting all her powers, ‘and take them on to the Glebe. I left her at the Glebe with—Mrs Diarmid. If it is too late to-night go to-morrow morning. I don’t think I shall have her here again.’
The maids were in a panic, alarmed for her sanity. They looked at her with suspicious looks. ‘Mrs. Stapylton,’ said Nelly, with an effort for breath, ‘you’re sure you ken what you’re saying. Oh! dinna be angry, if you’re yoursel. You’re sure you’ve done the wean no harm?’
‘Me! harm my darling!’ said Isabel, incredulous that the fear could be real; and then a blaze of momentary indignation came to her aid. ‘Go to your work both of you,’ she said; ‘and don’t take it upon you to criticise what I do. Stand aside, Nelly, I am going upstairs.’
They let her pass them with momentary bewilderment, not knowing what to do. ‘But I’ll tell him as soon as he comes in,’ said the elder woman; ‘a man ought to know.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Nelly, who had a spirit. ‘She’s mair like a living creature now, and no so like a ghost. Bide, and let him find out for himself.’
‘But, woman, the bairn!{296}’
‘Never you mind the bairn. She’s safe in the Glebe, I dinna doubt, with Jean. They’ve had some quarrel about her,’ said Nelly, with precocious insight, ‘and this is the upshot. Let us haud our tongues, and see what will come o’ ‘t. Eh, woman! a’body said ill would come o’ ‘t; and ye see it was true.’
‘As she has made her bed so must she lie,’ said the other, sententiously; and she went back to her kitchen to see after the dinner, which was being prepared all the same, whatever tragedies might come to pass. Nelly stole upstairs after Isabel; but dared not follow her to her room, much as she longed to do so; and lights began to be visible in the windows, and everything was made ready for the husband’s coming home.
Isabel had come to herself; her thoughts had lulled as the wind lulled, for no reason she knew of—perhaps out of weariness. When she went into her room she perceived the desk standing open, the pocket-book lying on the floor; and had so much possession of herself as to put them away, restoring the book to its place and closing the desk. She could do this with a certain calm, feeling as if her discovery had been made years ago, and since then she had had time to face the idea and accustom herself to it. She took off her wet gown, and dressed herself as usual. All this she did mechanically, in a sudden hush, scarcely thinking, scarcely feeling anything. When she heard his step coming to the door there rose within her a tempest just as sudden. Should she go down to meet him, or let him come here? Should she wait till he assailed her, or should she announce her awful discovery at once? None of these questions could Isabel answer for herself. She had to act mechanically, not knowing in one moment what she would do the next. He came in with an angry inquiry about ‘your mistress,’ which she could hear where she was. His voice was louder than usual; his very step betrayed irritation. But what was his irritation now to her? It even struck her with a curious sense of wonder that he could ............