The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

he looked at her in perplexity he remembered a commission of another kind, and put his hand into his pocket.

      “When I saw you, Alison, everything else went out of my head. But here is a letter I should have given you ere this; forgive me. It was sent to you at Ardroy, and Aunt Marget despatched one of the MacMartin lads hither with it; and meeting me by the bridge just now he gave it to me for you. It is from France, I think.”

      “I do not know the hand,” said Alison, studying the superscription, and finally breaking the seal. Ewen looked out of the window; but he did not see any of the passers-by.

      Suddenly there was an exclamation from the girl beside him on the window seat. He turned; her face was drained of colour.

      “My father . . . Ewen, Ewen, I must go at once—he is very ill . . . dying, they think. Oh, read!”

      Horrified, Ewen read a hasty French letter, already more than two weeks old, which said that M. Grant, on the point of leaving France again, had been taken seriously ill at Havre-de-Grâce; the writer, apparently a recent French acquaintance of his, appealed to Mlle Grant to sail for France at once, if she wanted to see her father alive—not that the state of M. Grant at the moment was desperate, but because the doctor held out small hope of ultimate recovery.

      Alison had sprung to her feet, and clasping and unclasping her hands was walking up and down the room.

      “Ewen, Ewen, what if I am not in time! My dearest, dearest father, ill and quite alone over there—no Hector anywhere near him now! I must go at once. I heard Lady Ogilvy say that there was a French vessel in port here due to sail for France in a day or two; I could go in that. Perhaps the captain could be persuaded to sail earlier . . .”

      In contrast to her restlessness, Ewen was standing quite still by the window.

      “Ewen,” she began again, “help me! Will you make enquiries of the captain of the ship? I think she is for St. Malocs, but that would serve; I could post on into Normandy. Will you find out the captain now—this afternoon? . . . Ewen, what ails you?”

      For her lover was gazing at her with an expression which was quite new to her.

      “I am deeply sorry to hear this ill news of Mr. Grant,” he said in a low voice, and seemed to find a difficulty in speaking, “—more sorry than I have words for. But, Alison, what of me?”

      “You would not wish to keep me back, surely?”

      “What do you think?” asked the young man rather grimly. “But I will not—no, it would not be right. I will let you go, but only as my wife. You’ll marry me to-morrow, Alison!”

      There was no pleading about him now. He moved a step or two nearer, having to keep a tight hold on himself neither to frighten her nor to let slip a word against this other claim which, much as he respected it, was coming in once more to sweep her away from him, when he had waited so long. Whatever might be read on his face, his actions were perfectly gentle.

      And Alison came to him, the tears running down her cheeks, and put her two hands in his. “Yes, Ewen, I am ready. Heart’s darling, I wish it, too; you must not think I am unwilling. . . . And you said that you would carry me off by force if I were,” she added, laughing a little hysterically, as he folded her once again in his arms.

      * * * * *

      So next day they were married in the little Episcopal meeting-house of Inverness. Only a very few people were present, but the Prince was among them: not the lighthearted adventurer of the escapade in Edinburgh in which the bridegroom had played so belauded a part, but a young man who looked what the last three months had made him, soured and distrustful. Yet he gave them a glimpse of his old charming smile after the ceremony, when he kissed the bride and wished them both happiness.

      “I would I were venerable enough to give you my blessing, my friends,” he said, “since ’tis all I have to give; but I think I am somewhat the junior of your husband, Lady Ardroy; and in any case how could I bestow my benediction upon a bridegroom who has the bad taste to be so much taller than his future King!”

      “But you know that I am at your feet, my Prince,” said Ewen, smiling, and he kissed once more the hand which he had kissed that night at Holyrood.

      Last of all Lochiel, grave and gentle, who had given Alison away, kissed her too, and said, “Ewen is a very fortunate man, my dear; but I think you are to be congratulated also.”

      For their brief wedded life a little house which Mr. Grant had hired the previous summer had been hastily prepared; it was bare almost to penury, a tent for a night or two, meet shelter for those who must part so soon. And Ewen had no gift ready for his bride—save one. When they came home he put on her middle finger the ring which the Prince had given him in Edinburgh.

      Next day was theirs to play at housekeeping, and they were a great deal more gay over it than Jeanie Wishart, Alison’s woman, who went about her work perpetually murmuring, “Puir young things!” In the afternoon, since the March sun had come out to look at them, they wandered among the Islands and gazed down at Ness, hurrying past, broad and clear and shallow, to the firth. That evening they had thought to spend alone by their own fireside; yet nothing would serve Lady Ogilvy save to give a supper for the new-married pair, and Lady Ardroy, in a rose-coloured gown, was toasted by not a few who would never drink a pledge again; and all the Jacobite songs were sung . . . but not, somehow, that only too appropriate, ‘Oh, this is my departing time, for here nae longer maun I stay,’ with which gatherings were wont to conclude.

      Yet Ewen and Alison sat by their fire after all, sat there until the last peat crumbled, and it began to grow cold; but Alison, as once before, was warm in the Cameron tartan, for Ewen had wrapped it round her knees over her pretty gown. He sat at her feet, looking very long and large, the firelight, while it lasted, playing on the shining golden brown of his hair, accentuating too the faint hollow in his cheek, the slight suggestion of a line between the brows which the last two months had set there.

      “Ewen, I want to tell you something.” Alison hesitated and a tinge of colour stole over her face. “Do you know, m’eudail, that you talk in your sleep?”

      He looked up at her surprised. “Do I? No, dearest, I did not know. Did I talk much—to disturb you?”

      She shook her head. Ewen seemed to turn over this information for a moment. “I believe,” he said thoughtfully, “that as a boy I used to do it sometimes, so Aunt Margaret said, but I thought that I had outgrown it. What did I talk of—you, sweetheart, I’ll warrant?”

      “No,” said Alison, smiling down upon him. “Not a word of your wife. You seemed to think that you were speaking to someone of whom she may well be jealous; and what is more, when I spoke to you, thinking for a moment that you were awake, you answered quite sensibly.”

      “Jealous!” exclaimed Ewen, turning his clear, candid gaze full upon her. “My little white love, there’s no one in this world of whom you have occasion to be jealous, nor ever has been. Do not pretend to be ignorant of where my heart is kept!” He took her clasped hands, opened them gently, and kissed the palms. “The space is small,” he said, looking critically at it, “but, such as the heart is, all of it lies there.”

      Alison enveloped him in a warm, sweet smile, and slid the hands round his neck. “All? No; there’s a corner you have kept for someone else, and in it you have set up a little shrine, as the Papists do, for your saint—for Lochiel. But I am not jealous,” she added very softly. “I understand.”

      Ewen gave her a look, put his own hands over those clasped round his neck, and dropped his head on to her knee in silence. After a while she put her cheek against the thick, warm waves of his hair. Joy and apprehension had so clasped hands about Alison Cameron this day that it was hard to know which was the stronger.

      But in the night she knew. The icy fingers of foreboding seemed gripped about her heart. Not even Ewen’s quiet, unhurried breathing beside her, not even the touch of his hand, over which her fingers stole in search of comfort, could reassure her; his nearness but made the pain the sharper. Oh, to have him hers only