Chapter 40

BABBIE AND MARGARET--DEFENCE OF THE MANSE CONTINUED.

The Egyptian was mournful in Windyghoul, up which she had once
danced and sung; but you must not think that she still feared Dow.
I felt McKenzie's clutch on any arm for hours after he left me,
but she was far braver than I; indeed, dangers at which I should
have shut my eyes only made hers gleam, and I suppose it was sheer
love of them that first made her play the coquette with Gavin. If
she cried now, it was not for herself; it was because she thought
she had destroyed him. Could I have gone to her then and said that
Gavin wanted to blot out the gypsy wedding, that throbbing little
breast would have frozen at once, and the drooping head would have
been proud again, and she would have gone away forever without
another tear.

What do I say? I am doing a wrong to the love these two bore each
other. Babbie would not have taken so base a message from my lips.
He would have had to say the words to her himself before she
believed them his. What would he want her to do now? was the only
question she asked herself. To follow him was useless, for in that
rain and darkness two people might have searched for each other
all night in a single field. That he would go to the Spittal,
thinking her in Rintoul's dogcart, she did not doubt; and his
distress was painful to her to think of. But not knowing that the
burns were in flood, she underestimated his danger.

Remembering that the mudhouse was near, she groped her way to it,
meaning to pass the night there; but at the gate she turned away
hastily, hearing from the door the voice of a man she did not know
to be Nanny's brother. She wandered recklessly a short distance,
until the rain began to threaten again, and then, falling on her
knees in the broom, she prayed to God for guidance. When she rose
she set off for the manse.

The rain that followed the flash of lightning had brought Margaret
to the kitchen.

"Jean, did you ever hear such a rain? It is trying to break into
the manse."

"I canna hear you, ma'am; is it the rain you're feared at?"

"What else could it be?"

Jean did not answer.

"I hope the minister won't leave the church, Jean, till this is
over?"

"Nobody would daur, ma'am. The rain'll turn the key on them all."

Jean forced out these words with difficulty, for she knew that the
church had been empty and the door locked for over an hour.

"This rain has come as if in answer to the minister's prayer,
Jean."

"It wasna rain like this they wanted."

"Jean, you would not attempt to guide the Lord's hand. The
minister will have to reprove the