"I will let it all go," she said to herself, at last. "Was I right?

Was I wrong? Would it have been better? Would it have been worse? G.o.d knows, who, though I knew it not, has had His hand about me through it all. I am content. As for what may be before me--that is in His hand as well."

Would she have had it otherwise? No, she would not--even if it should come true that the life she had fled from, might still be hers. But that could never be. Brownrig helpless, repentant, was no longer the man whom she had loathed and feared.

Since the Lord himself had interposed to save him, might not she--for His dear name's sake--be willing to serve him in his suffering and weakness, till the end should come? And what did it matter whether the service were done here or there, or whether the time were longer or shorter? And why should she heed what might be said of it all? Even the thought of her brother, who would be angry, and perhaps unreasonable in his anger, must not come between her and her duty to this man, to whom she had been brought as a friend and helper at last.

And so she let all go--her doubts, and fears, and cares, willing to wait G.o.d's will. Her face grew white and thin in these days, but very peaceful. At the utterance of some chance word, there came no more a sudden look of doubt or fear into her beautiful, sad eyes. Face, and eyes, and every word and movement told of peace. Whatever struggle she had been pa.s.sing through, during all these months, it was over now. She was waiting neither for one thing nor another,--to be bound, or to be set free. She was "waiting on G.o.d's will, content."

They all saw it--Mistress Robb, in whose house she lived, and Robert Hume, and Doctor Fleming, who had been mindful of her health and comfort all through her stay. Even Mr Rainy, who had little time to spare from his own affairs, took notice of her peaceful face, and her untroubled movements as she went about the sickroom.

"But oh! I'm wae for the puir la.s.sie," said he, falling like the rest into Scotch when much moved. "She kens little what's before her. He is like a lamb now; but when his strength comes back, if it ever comes back,--she will hae her ain adoes with him. Still--she's a sensible woman, and she canna but hae her ain thochts about him, and--and about-- ahem--the gear he must soon--in the course o' nature--leave behind him.

Weel! it will fall into good hands; it could hardly fall into better, unless indeed, the Brownrig, that young Douglas of Fourden married against the will o' his friends some forty years ago, should turn out to be the factor's eldest sister, and a soldier lad I ken o', should be her son. It is to a man's own flesh and blood, that his siller (money) should go by rights. But yet a man can do what he likes with what he has won for himsel'--"

All this or something like it, Mr Rainy had said to himself a good many times of late, and one day he said it to Doctor Fleming, with whom, since they both had so much to do with Brownrig, he had fallen into a sort of intimacy.

"Yes, she is a sensible woman, and may make a good use of it. But it is to a man's ain flesh and blood that his gear should go. I have been taking some trouble in the looking up of a nephew of his, to whom he has left five hundred pounds, and I doubt the lad will not be well pleased, that all the rest should go as it's going."

The doctor had not much to say about the matter. But he answered:

"As to Mistress Allison's being ready to take up the guiding of Brownrig's fine house when he is done with it, I cannot make myself believe it beforehand. She has no such thought as that, or I am greatly mistaken. By all means, do you what may be done to find this nephew of her husband's."

"Is it that you are thinking she will refuse to go with Brownrig to Blackhills?"

"I cannot say. I am to speak to her to-morrow. If he is to go, it must be soon."

"She'll go," said Mr Rainy.

"Yes, I think she may go," said the doctor; but though they agreed, or seemed to agree, their thoughts about the matter were as different as could well be.

The next day Doctor Fleming stood long by the bed, looking on the face of the sleeper. It had changed greatly since the sick man lay down there. He had grown thin and pale, and all traces of the self-indulgence which had so injured him, had pa.s.sed away. He looked haggard and wan--the face was the face of an old man. But even so, it was a better face, and pleasanter to look on, than it had ever been in his time of health.

"A spoiled life!" the doctor was saying to himself. "With a face and a head like that, he ought to have been a wiser and better man. I need not disturb him to-day," said he to Allison, as he turned to go.

He beckoned to her when he reached the door.

"Mistress Allison, answer truly the question I am going to put to you.

Will it be more than you are able to bear, to go with him to his home, and wait there for the end?"

"Surely, I am able. I never meant to go till lately. But I could never forsake him now. Oh! yes, I will be ready to go, when you shall say the time is come."

She spoke very quietly, not at all as if it cost her anything to say it.

Indeed, in a sense, it did not. She was willing now to go.

The doctor looked at her gravely.

"Are you able--quite able? I do not think he will need you for a very long time. I am glad you are willing to go, though I never would have urged you to do so, or have blamed you if you had refused."

In his heart he doubted whether the journey could ever be taken. Days pa.s.sed and little change appeared. The sick man was conscious when he was spoken to, and answered clearly enough the questions that were put to him by the doctors; but he had either given up, or had forgotten his determination to get home to die. Allison stayed in the place by night as well as by day, and while she rested close at hand, Robert Hume or the faithful d.i.c.kson took the watch. She would not leave him. He might rouse himself and ask for her, and she would not fail him at the last.

She did not fail him. For one morning as she stood looking down upon him, when the others had gone away, he opened his eyes and spoke her name. She stooped to catch his words.

"Is it all forgiven?" he said faintly.

"All forgiven!" she answered, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she bent her head and touched her lips to his.

A strange brightness pa.s.sed over the dying face.

"Forgiven!" he breathed. It was his last word.

He lingered still a few days more. Long, silent days, in which there was little to be done but to wait for the end. Through them all, Allison sat beside the bed, slumbering now and then, when some one came to share her watch, but ready at the faintest moan or movement of the dying man, with voice or touch, to soothe or satisfy him. Her strength and courage held out till her hand was laid on the closed eyes, and then she went home to rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

"Choosing to walk in the shadow, Patient and not afraid."

Allison had need of rest, greater need than she knew. The first days after her long watch and service came to an end were pa.s.sed in utter quiet. No one came to disturb her, either with question or counsel.

Mr Rainy, of course, took the management of affairs into his hands; and if he could have had his own way, everything which was to be done, and the manner of doing it, would have been submitted to her for direction or approval. It would, to him, have seemed right that she should go at once to Blackhills, to await in the forsaken house the coming home of its dead master.

But Doctor Fleming had something to say about the matter. He would not allow a word to be spoken to her concerning any arrangement which was to be made.

"You know that you have full power to do as you think fit with regard to the burial, and all else that may require your oversight. Any reference which you would be likely to make to Mistress Allison, would be a mere matter of form, and I will not have her disturbed. Man! ye little ken how ill able she is to bear what ye would lay upon her. As to her even hearing a word about going up yonder, it is out of the question. Leave her in peace for a while, and you will have the better chance of getting your own way with her later."

"As you say, doctor, it is a mere matter of form. But forms and ceremonies cannot ay be dispensed with. She might like to have her ain say, as is the way with women. However, I can wait till later on, as you advise."

So Allison was left in quiet. Brownrig was carried to his own house, and for a few days his coffin stood there in the unbroken silence of the place.

Then his neighbours gathered to his burial, and "gentle and simple"

followed him to his grave. As the long procession moved slowly on, many a low-spoken word was exchanged between friends concerning the dead man and his doings during the years he had been in the countryside. His strong will, his uncertain temper, his faithful service to an easy and improvident employer, all were discussed and commented upon freely enough, yet with a certain reticence and forbearance also, since "he had gone to his account."

It was a pity that he had become so careless about himself of late, they said. That was the mild way in which they put it, when they alluded to "the drink" which had been "the death of him." And who was to come after him? Who was to get the good of what he had left?

Allison Bain's name was spoken also. Had she been wrong to go away?

Had she been right? If she had accepted her lot, might she have saved him, and lived to be a happy woman in spite of all? Who could say? But if all was true that his man d.i.c.kson was saying, she had helped to save him at last.

In silence they laid him down within sight of the grave where Allison had knelt one sorrowful day, and there they left him to his rest.

Allison was worn and spent, but she was a strong woman and she would soon be herself again, she said, and her friends said so also. They did not know that Doctor Fleming had, at this time, some anxiety about her.

He remembered the first days of his acquaintance with her, and the dull despair into which she had fallen, before he sent her to Nethermuir, and he would not have been surprised if, after the long strain upon mind and body through which she had pa.s.sed, the same suffering had fallen upon her again. Therefore it was that he used both his authority as a physician and his influence as a friend, to prevent any allusion to business matters; and though he was guarded in all that he said to Mr Rainy on the subject, he yet said enough to show him the propriety of letting all things remain as they were, for a time.

So Allison was left at peace,--in the quiet little house which she was beginning to call her home. She had been asked, and even entreated by Mrs Hume, to come to the manse for a while. Mrs Beaton had written to say how glad it would make her if Allison would come to her for a week or two. But remembering the misery of her first months in Nethermuir, Allison hesitated at first, and then refused them both. She was better where she was, she said, and in a few days she would be ready for her work again.

She did not say it to them, and she hardly confessed it to herself, but she shrank from the thought of the eyes that would be looking at her, and the tongues that would be discussing her, now that her secret was known. For of course it could not be kept. All her small world would know how who she was, and why she had come to take refuge in the manse.

They would think well of her, or ill of her, according to their natures, but that would not trouble her if she were not there to hear and see.

So she stayed where she was, and as she could not do what she would have liked best, she made up her mind to go back to the infirmary again.

She would have liked best to go away at once to her brother in America, and some of her friends were inclined to wonder that she did not do so.

But Allison had her reasons, some of which she was not prepared to discuss with any one,--which indeed she did not like to dwell upon herself. She had been asked to come to the home of the Haddens to stay there till her brother was ready for her. When she was stronger and surer of herself, she would accept their kind invitation, and then she would go to Willie--it did not matter where. East or West, far or near, would be all the same to her in that strange land, so that she and Willie might be able to help one another.