“A husband for Cousin Edie,” said I.

They thought I was daffing when I said that; but when they came to understand that it was the real truth, they were as proud and as pleased as if I had told them that she had married the laird.  Indeed, poor Jim, with his hard drinking and his fighting, had not a very bright name on the country-side, and my mother had often said that no good could come of such a match.  Now, de Lapp was, for all we knew, steady and quiet and well-to-do.  And as to the secrecy of it, secret marriages were very common in Scotland at that time, when only a few words were needed to make man and wife, so nobody thought much of that.  The old folk were as pleased, then, as if their rent had been lowered; but I was still sore at heart, for it seemed to me that my friend had been cruelly dealt with, and I knew well that he was not a man who would easily put up with it.

CHAPTER X.

THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW.

I woke with a heavy heart the next morning, for I knew that Jim would be home before long, and that it would be a day of trouble.  But how much trouble that day was to bring, or how far it would alter the lives of us, was more than I had ever thought in my darkest moments.  But let me tell you it all, just in the order that it happened.

I had to get up early that morning; for it was just the first flush of the lambing, and my father and I were out on the moors as soon as it was fairly light.  As I came out into the passage a wind struck upon my face, and there was the house door wide open, and the grey light drawing another door upon the inner wall.  And when I looked again there was Edie’s room open also, and de Lapp’s too; and I saw in a flash what that giving of presents meant upon the evening before.  It was a leave-taking, and they were gone.

My heart was bitter against Cousin Edie as I stood looking into her room.  To think that for the sake of a newcomer she could leave us all without one kindly word, or as much as a hand-shake.  And he, too!  I had been afraid of what would happen when Jim met him; but now there seemed to be something cowardly in this avoidance of him.  I was angry and hurt and sore, and I went out into the open without a word to my father, and climbed up on to the moors to cool my flushed face.

When I got up to Corriemuir I caught my last glimpse of Cousin Edie.  The little cutter still lay where she had anchored, but a rowboat was pulling out to her from the shore.  In the stern I saw a flutter of red, and I knew that it came from her shawl.  I watched the boat reach the yacht and the folk climb on to her deck.  Then the anchor came up, the white wings spread once more, and away she dipped right out to sea.  I still saw that little red spot on the deck, and de Lapp standing beside her.  They could see me also, for I was outlined against the sky, and they both waved their hands for a long time, but gave it up at last when they found that I would give them no answer.