Mrs. Strathsay fell forward on the body with a long, low moan.  He faced about and slid through us all, ere Angus could lay hand on him,—­his eye on Mary Strathsay.  There was no love on her face, no expectancy, no passion, but she flung herself between the two,—­between Angus following and Helmar going, for he distained to fly,—­then shut and clasped the window, guarded it beneath one hand, and held Angus with her eye, white, silent, deathly, no joy, no woe, only a kind of bitter triumph in achieving that escape.  And it was as if Satan had stalked among us there.

’Twas no use pursuit;—­the ship that I had heard weighing anchor was reached ere then and winging down the river.  And from that hour to this we have never set eyes on Helmar.

Well, at midsummer of the next year Angus married me.  We were very quiet, and I wore the white slip in which he showed me myself in the glass as a a bride,—­for we would not cast aside our crapes so soon, and Mary wears hers to this day.  From morn till night my poor mother used only to sit and moan, and all her yellow hair was white as driving snow.  I could not leave her, so Angus rented his estates and came and lived with us.  ’Tis different now;—­Mrs. Strathsay goes about as of old, and sees there be no speck on the buttery-shelves, that the sirup of her lucent plums be clear as the light strained through carbuncles, her honeycombs unbroken, her bread like manna, and no followers about her maids.  And Mrs. Strathsay has her wish at length;—­there’s a son in the house, a son of her own choosing, (for she had ever small regard for the poor little Graeme,)—­none knew how she had wished it, save by the warmth with which she hailed it,—­and she is bringing him up in the way he should go.  She’s aye softer than she was, she does not lay her moulding finger on him too heavily;—­if she did, I doubt but we should have to win away to our home.  Dear body! all her sunshine has come out!  He has my father’s name, and when sleep’s white finger has veiled his bonnie eyes, and she sits by him, grand and stately still, but humming low ditties that I never heard her sing before, I verily believe that she fancies him to be my father’s child.

And still in the nights of clear dark we lean from the broad bower-window and watch the river flowing by, the rafts swimming down with breath of wood-scents and wild life, the small boats rocking on the tide, revivifying our childhood with the strength of our richer years, heart so locked in heart that we have no need of words,—­Angus and I. And often, as we lean so, over the beautiful silence of lapping ripple and dipping oar there floats a voice rising and falling in slow throbs of tune;—­it is Mary Strathsay singing some old sanctified chant, and her soul seems to soar with her voice, and both would be lost in heaven but for the tender human sympathies that draw her back to our side again.  For we have grown to be a glad and peaceful family at length;