“No, no, Rob.  Dinna say that.  It wadna be richt at a’, an’ I’d be doin’ anither wrang thing if I did.”

“But you said jist the noo, that you sometimes thocht you wadna marry onybody else?”

“Yes, I ken I said that,” she replied.  Then with pain in her voice as it grew more pitiful, “Dinna ask me, Rob, to do that.  I ken it wadna be richt, an’ you munna ask me ony mair; for though I said that I sometimes thocht I wadna marry onybody else, I canna marry you noo.  Oh! if only my mither kent, it would break her heart, an’ my faither wad dee o’ the disgrace!  What do they think o’ me, Rob?  Tell me a’—­hoo are they, an’ if they miss me very much.”

“Your faither and mither nearly broke their hearts,” he said simply, “an’ at nicht your mother lies an’ thinks an’ wonders what has come owre you.  You ken hoo a mither grieves an’ worries aboot her bairns.  She never thocht o’ sic a thing happening in her family.  She was aye sae prood o’ them a’.  I heard her say ane day to my mither that she dootit you maun be deid, or you wad hae sent her word; and that you wadna hae gane wrang.  She never, she said, kent o’ you takin’ up wi’ men, an’ was sure that naething o’ that kind had happened.”

“Did she really think that, Rob?” asked Mysie, glad to know that her mother had believed in her virtue, yet pained.  “Rob, if only mithers wad be mair open wi’ their lassies an’ tell them o’ the things they shouldna’ do, an’ the dangers that lie afore them.  But tell me aboot them a’.  What did my faither say aboot it?  How are they a’ keepin’?”

This was the question which Robert had feared most, for although Matthew Maitland had said very little, everybody knew that he grieved sorely over his daughter’s disappearance, and at the time was lying very ill.  He was fast nearing the end, which most colliers of the day reached—­cut off in middle life, made old by bad ventilation in the mines, and black damp.  His condition was almost despaired of by the doctor, and when Robert left Lowwood that evening for Edinburgh, he was in a very critical state.  Two months before, the oldest boy, who was some two years younger than Mysie, had been taken suddenly ill, and had died after a few days’ illness.

How was he to tell Mysie of this?  How tell her that John was dead, and her father perhaps dying?  How tell of her mother eating out her heart in the hungry longing for news of the missing girl, and killing herself with work and worry?

“Your faither’s no’ very weel, Mysie,” he began evasively, his eyes turned away from her, in an attempt at hiding what he felt.

“What’s wrang wi’ him, Rob?” she asked, the quick alarm in her voice cutting his heart as she spoke.

“He hasna been workin’ for fully a fortnicht,” he replied.

“But what’s wrang?” she persisted.  “Is he ill?”

“Mysie, I’d raither onything than be the means o’ painin’ you, for you are no’ in a fit state to be worried.”