But things did not go so easily as Mrs. Ogilvie supposed.

Effie had received a blow which was not easily forgotten. The previous mistakes of her young career might have been forgotten, and it is possible that she might have come to be tolerably happy in the settling down and evaporation of all young thoughts and dreams, had she in the fervour of her first impulse become Fred Dirom’s wife. It would not have been the happiness of her ideal, but it often happens that an evanescent splendour like that which illumines the early world dies away with comparative harmlessness, and leaves a very good substitute of solid satisfaction on a secondary level, with which all but the visionary learn to be content.

But the sharp and keen awakening with which she opened her eyes on a disenchanted world, when she found her attempted sacrifice so misunderstood, and felt herself put back into the common-place position of a girl disappointed, she who had risen to the point of heroism, and made up her mind to give up her very life, cannot be described. Effie did not turn in the rebound to another love, as her stepmother fully calculated. Though that other love was the first, the most true, the only faithful, though she was herself vaguely aware that in him she would find the comprehension for which she longed, as well as the love—though her heart, in spite of herself, turned to this old playmate and companion with an aching desire to tell him everything, to get the support of his sympathy, yet, at the same time, Effie shrank from Ronald as she shrank from every one.

The delicate fibres of her being had been torn and severed; they would not heal or knit together again. It might be that her heart was permanently injured and never would recover its tone, it might be that the recoil from life and heart-sickness might be only temporary. No one could tell. Mrs. Ogilvie, who would not believe at first that the appearance of Ronald would be ineffectual, or that the malady was more than superficial, grew impatient afterwards.

“It is all just selfishness,” she said; “it is just childish. Because she cannot have what she wanted, she will not take what she can get; and the worst of all is that she never wanted it when she could have it.”

“That’s just the way with women,” said her husband; “ye are all alike. Let her come to herself, and don’t bore me about her as you’re doing, night and day. What is a girl and her sweetheart to me?”

“Don’t you think,” said Mr. Moubray, “if you had been honest with Effie from the first, if you had allowed her own heart to speak, if there had been no pressure on one side, and no suppression on the other——”

“In short,” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, with a flush of anger, “if we had just left everything to a bit silly thing that has not had the wit to guide herself in the most simple, straightforward way! where ye would have thought a fool could not go wrong——!”

Mr. Ogilvie at this lifted his head.

“Are ye quarrelling with John Moubray, Janet?” he said; “things must have come to a pretty pass when you fling yourself upon the minister, not content with putting me to silence. If ye’re ill-pleased with Effie,” said the head of the family, “let Effie bear the wyte; but what have we done, him and me?”

The minister, however, was Effie’s resource and help. He opened his own heart to her, showing her how it had bled and how it had been healed, and by and by the girl came to see, with slowly growing perception and a painful, yet elevating, knowledge, how many things lay hidden in the lives and souls which presented often a common-place exterior to the world. This was a moment in which it seemed doubtful whether the rending of all those delicate chords in her own being might not turn to bitterness and a permanent loss and injury. She was disposed to turn her face from the light, to avoid all tenderness and sympathy, to find that man delighted her not, nor woman either.

It was in this interval that Eric’s brief but very unsatisfactory visit took place, which the young fellow felt was as good as the loss of his six weeks’ leave altogether. To be sure, there was a hard frost which made him some amends, and in the delights of skating and curling compensated him for his long journey home; and Ronald, his old comrade, whom he had expected to lose, went back with him, which was something to the credit side. But he could not understand Effie, and was of opinion that she had been jilted, and could scarcely be kept from making some public demonstration against Fred Dirom, who had used his sister ill, he thought. This mistake, too, added to Effie’s injuries of spirit a keener pang: and the tension was cruel.

But when Eric and Ronald were gone again, and all had relapsed into silence, the balance turned, and the girl began to be herself once more, or rather to be a better and loftier self, never forgetful of the sudden cross and conflict of the forces of life which had made so strong an impression upon her youth.

Miss Dempster, after some further suffering, died quite peacefully in the ruddy dawn of a winter’s morning, after doing much to instruct the world and her immediate surroundings from her sick bed, and much enjoying the opportunity. She did not sleep very well the last few nights, and the prospect of “just getting a good sleep in my coffin before you bury me, and it all begins again,” was agreeable to her.

She seemed to entertain the curious impression that the funeral of her body would be the moment of re-awakening for her soul, and that till that final incident occurred she would not be severed from this worldly life, which thus literally was rounded by a sleep. It was always an annoyance to her that her room was to the back, and she could not see Dr. Jardine as formerly come to his window and take off his dram, but perhaps it was rather with the sisterly desire to tease Beenie than from any other reason that this lamentation (with a twinkle in her eyes) was daily made.

When she died, the whole village and every neighbour far and near joined in the universal lamentation. Those who had called her an old cat in her life-time wept over her when she was laid in the grave, and remembered all her good deeds, from the old wives in the village, who had never wanted their pickle tea or their pinch of snuff so long as Miss Dempster was to the fore, to the laird’s wife herself, who thought regretfully of the silver candlesticks, and did not hesitate to say that nobody need be afraid of giving a party, whether it was a dinner or a ball supper that had to be provided, so long as Miss Dempster was mistress of the many superfluous knives and forks at Rosebank.

“She was just a public benefactor,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, who had not always expressed that opinion.

As for Miss Beenie, her eyes were rivers of tears, and her sister’s admirable qualities her only theme. She lived but to mourn and to praise the better half of her existence, her soul being as much widowed by this severance as if she had been a bereaved wife instead of a sister.

“Nobody can tell what she was to me, just more than can be put into words. She was mother and sister and mistress and guide all put into one. I’m not a whole human creature. I am but part of one, left like a wreck upon the shore—and the worst part,” Miss Beenie said.

The doctor, who had been suspected of a tear himself at the old lady’s funeral, and had certainly blown his nose violently on the way back, was just out of all patience with Miss Beenie’s yammering, he said, and he missed the inspection of himself and all his concerns that had gone on from Rosebank. He was used to it, and he did not know how to do without it.

One spring morning, after the turn of the year, he went up with a very resolute air the tidy gravel path between the laurel hedges.

“Eh, doctor, I cannot bide to hear your step—and yet I am fain, fain to hear it: for it’s like as if she was still in life, and ye were coming to see her.”

“Miss Beenie,” said the doctor, “this cannot go on for ever. She was a good woman, and she has gone to a better place. But one thing is certain, that ye cannot bide here for ever, and that I cannot bide to leave you here. You must just come your ways across the road, and set up your tabernacle with me.”

At this, Miss Beenie uttered a cry of consternation: “Doctor! you must be taking leave of your senses. Me!——”

“And why not you?” said Dr. Jardine. “You would be far better over the way. It’s more cheerful, and we would be company for one another. I am not ill company when I am on my mettle. I desire that you will just think it over, and fix a day——”

And after a while, Miss Beenie found that there was sense in the suggestion, and dried her eyes, and did as she was desired, having been accustomed to do so, as she said, all her life.

The Diroms disappeared from Allonby as if they had never been there, and were heard of no more: though not without leaving disastrous traces at least in one heart and life.

But it may be that Effie’s wounds are not mortal after all. And one day Captain Sutherland must come home——

And who knows?

THE END.
This work appeared originally in “The Scottish Church.”
ROBERT MACLEHOSE, UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.