“I daursay! Wha ever saw ’at wadna luik?” returned Miss Horn, with a glance keen as an eagle’s into the thoughtful eyes of her friend.
“Why not do by the writer of these as you have done by me? Why not take them to him?” suggested Mr Graham.
“That wad be but thoomb-fingert wark—to lat gang the en’ o’ yer hank!” exclaimed Miss Horn.
“I do not understand you, ma’am.”
“Weel, I maun gar ye un’erstan’ me. There’s things whiles, Sandy Graham, ’at’s no easy to speyk aboot—but I hae nae feelin’s, an’ we’ll a’ be deid or lang, an’ that’s a comfort. Man ’at ye are, ye’re the only human bein’ I wad open my moo’ till aboot this maitter, an’ that’s ’cause ye lo’e the memory o’ my puir lassie, Grizell Cam’ell.”
“It is not her memory, it is herself I love,” said the schoolmaster with trembling voice. “Tell me what you please: you may trust me.”
“Gien I needit you to tell me that, I wad trust ye as I wad the black dog wi’ butter!—Hearken, Sandy Graham.”
The result of her communication and their following conference was, that she returned about midnight with a journey before her, the object of which was to place the letters in the safe keeping of a lawyer-friend in the neighbouring county town.
Long before she reached home, Mrs Catanach had left—not without communication with her ally, in spite of a certain precaution adopted by her mistress, the first thing the latter did when she entered being to take the key of the cellar stairs from her pocket, and release Jean, who issued crestfallen and miserable, and was sternly dismissed to bed. The next day, however, for reasons of her own, Miss Horn permitted her to resume her duties about the house without remark, as if nothing had happened serious enough to render further measures necessary.