It is only a strong, pure
heart like Robert's that ever can feel all the inroad of the divine
mystery of womanhood. But he did not kneel. He had a duty to
perform. A flush rose in Miss St. John's face, and sank away,
leaving it pale. It was not that she thought once of her own
condition, with her hair loose on her shoulders, but, able only to
conjecture what had brought him thither, she could not but regard
Robert's presence with dismay. She stood with her ivory brush in
her right hand uplifted, and a great handful of hair in her left.
She was soon relieved, however, although what with his contemplated
intercession, the dim vision of Mary's lovely face between the
masses of her hair, and the lavender odour that filled the
room--perhaps also a faint suspicion of impropriety sufficient to
give force to the rest--Robert was thrown back into the abyss of his
mother-tongue, and out of this abyss talked like a Behemoth.
'Robert!' said Mary, in a tone which, had he not been so eager after
his end, he might have interpreted as one of displeasure.
'Ye maun hearken till me, mem.--Whan I was oot at Bodyfauld,' he
began methodically, and Mary, bewildered, gave one hasty brush to
her handful of hair and again stood still: she could imagine no
connection between this meeting and their late parting--'Whan I was
was oot at Bodyfauld ae simmer, I grew acquant wi' a bonnie lassie
there, the dochter o' Jeames Hewson, an honest cottar, wi'
Shakspeare an' the Arabian Nichts upo' a skelf i' the hoose wi' 'im.
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