Donal Grant

"How will she bear it," thought Donal; "how after such an experience, can she spend the rest of the day alone? There is all the long afternoon and evening to be met!"

He gave the last turn to the screw in the floor, and rose. Then first he saw that Arctura had turned very white.

"Do sit down, my lady!" he said. "I would run for mistress Brookes, but I dare not leave you."

"No, no; we will go down together! Give me that bottle of eau de Cologne, please."

Donal did not know either eau de Cologne or its bottle, but he darted to the dressing-table and guessed correctly. It revived her, and she began to take deep breaths. Then with a strong effort she rose to go down.

The time for speech concerning what they had seen, was not come!

"Would you not like, my lady," said Donal, "to come to the schoolroom this afternoon? You could sit beside while I give Davie his lessons!"

"Yes," she answered at once; "I should like it much!—Is there not something you could give me to do?—Will you not teach me something?"

"I should like to begin you with Greek, and teach you a little mathematics—geometry first of all."

"You frighten me!"

"Your fright wouldn't outlast the beginning," said Donal. "Anyhow, you will have Davie and me for company! You must be lonely sometimes! You see little of Miss Carmichael now, I fancy."

"She has not been near me since that day in the avenue! We salute now and then coming out of church. She will not come again except I ask her; and I shall be in no haste: she would only assume I was sorry, and could not do without her!"

"I should let her wait, my lady!" said Donal. "She sorely wants humbling!"

"You do not know her, Mr. Grant, if you think anything I could do would have that effect on her."

"Pardon me, my lady; I did not imagine it your task to humble her! But you need not let her ride over you as she used to do; she knows nothing really, and a great many things unreally. Unreal knowledge is worse than ignorance.—Would not Miss Graeme be a better friend?"

"She is much more lovable; but she does not trouble her head about the things I care for.—I mean religion," she added hesitatingly.

"So much the better,—"

"Mr. Grant!"

"You did not let me finish, my lady!—So much the better, I was going to say, till she begins to trouble her heart about it—or rather to untrouble her heart with it! The pharisee troubled his head, and no doubt his conscience too, and did not go away justified; but the poor publican, as we with our stupid pity would call him, troubled his heart about it; and that trouble once set a going, there is no fear. Head and all must soon follow.—But how am I to get rid of this plaster without being seen?"

"I will show you the way to your own stair without going down—the way we came once, you may remember. You can take it to the top of the house till it is dark.—But I do not feel comfortable about my uncle's visit. Can it be that he suspects something? Perhaps he knows all about the chapel—and that stair too!"

"He is a man to enjoy having a secret!—But our discovery bears out what we were saying as to the likeness of house and man—does it not?"

"You don't mean there is anything like that in me?" rejoined Arctura, looking frightened.

"You!" he exclaimed. "—But I mean no individual application," he added, "except as reflected from the general truth. This house is like every human soul, and so, like me and you and all of us. We have found the chapel of the house, the place they used to pray to God in, built up, lost, forgotten, filled with dust and damp—and the mouldering dead lying there before the Lord, waiting to be made live again and praise him!"

"I said you meant me!" murmured Arctura, with a faint, sad smile.

"No; the time is past for that. It is long since first you were aware of the dead self in the lost chapel; a hungry soul soon misses both, and knows, without being sure of it, that they are somewhere. You have kept searching for them in spite of all persuasion that the quest was foolish."

Arctura's eyes shone in her pale face; but they shone with gathering tears. Donal turned away, and took up the pail. She rose, and guided him to his tower-stair, where he went up and she went down.

CHAPTER LVII.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM

As the clock upon the schoolroom chimney-piece struck the hour, Arctura entered, and at once took her seat at the table with Davie—much to the boy's wonder and pleasure. Donal gave her a Euclid, and set her a task: she began at once to learn it—and after a while so brief that Davie stared incredulous, said,

"If you please, Mr. Grant, I think I could be questioned upon it now."

Less than a minute sufficed to show Donal that she thoroughly understood what she had been learning, and he set her then a little more. By the time their work was over he had not a doubt left that suchlike intellectual occupation would greatly subserve all phases of her health. With entireness she gave herself to the thing she had to do; and Donal thought how strong must be her nature, to work so calmly, and think so clearly, after what she had gone through that morning.

School over, and Davie gone to his rabbits.

"Mistress Brookes invites us to supper with her," said lady Arctura. "I asked her to ask us. I don't want to go to bed till I am quite sleepy. You don't mind, do you?"

"I am very glad, my lady," responded Donal.

"Don't you think we had better tell her all about it?"

"As you think fit. The secret is in no sense mine; it is only yours; and the sooner it ceases to be a secret the better for all of us!"

"I have but one reason for keeping it," she returned.

"Your uncle?"

"Yes; I know he will be annoyed. But there may be other reasons why I should reveal the thing."

"There may indeed!" said Donal.

"Still, I should be sorry to offend him more than I cannot help. If he were a man like my father, I should never dream of going against him; I should in fact leave everything to him he cared to attend to. But seeing he is the man he is, it would be absurd. I dare not let him manage my affairs for me much longer. I must understand for myself how things are going."

"You will not, I hope, arrange anything without the presence of a lawyer! I fear I have less confidence in your uncle than you have!"

Arctura made no reply, and Donal was afraid he had hurt her; but the next moment she looked up with a sad smile, and said,

"Well, poor man! we will not compare our opinions of him: he is my father's brother, and I shall be glad not to offend him. But my father would have reason to be dissatisfied if I left everything to my uncle as if he had not left everything to me. If he had been another sort of man, my father would surely have left the estate to him!"

At nine o'clock they met in the housekeeper's room—low-ceiled, large, lined almost round with oak presses, which were mistress Brookes's delight. She welcomed them as to her own house, and made an excellent hostess.

But Donal would not mix the tumbler of toddy she would have had him take. For one thing he did not like his higher to be operated upon from his lower: it made him feel as if possessed by a not altogether real self. But the root of his objection lay in the teaching of his mother. The things he had learned of his parents were to him his patent of nobility, vouchers that he was honourably descended: of his birth he was as proud as any man. And hence this night he was led to talk of his father and mother, and the things of his childhood. He told Arctura all about the life he had led; how at one time he kept cattle in the fields, at another sheep on the mountains; how it came that he was sent to college, and all the story of sir Gibbie. The night wore on. Arctura listened—did nothing but listen; she was enchanted. And it surprised Donal himself to find how calmly he could now look back upon what had seemed to threaten an everlasting winter of the soul. It was indeed the better thing that Ginevra should be Gibbie's wife!

A pause had come, and he had fallen into a brooding memory of things gone by, when a sudden succession of quick knocks fell on his ear. He started—strangely affected. Neither of his companions took notice of it, though it was now past one o'clock. It was like a knocking with knuckles against the other side of the wall of the room.

"What can that be?" he said, listening for more.

"H'ard ye never that 'afore, maister Grant?" said the housekeeper. "I hae grown sae used til't my ears hardly tak notice o' 't!"

"What is it?" asked Donal.