“So far, perhaps, you were prudent, but prudence is naturally mean and as often wrong as right. And why did you lie to me, so meanly and so tediously?”
“You have to lie to women, if you alter in the least anything you have told them. You cannot explain to a woman, unless you want to stand all day doing it. There are times when a lie is simply an explanation, a better one than the truth would be. The great Shakespeare held that such lies were more for number, than account.”
“I do not take my opinion of lies from William Shakespeare. A lie is a lie. There was no need for a lie in this case. The lie you made up about it was for account, not for number – be sure of that. You admit that you did not give Christine the ninety pounds you borrowed from me, in order to pay your debt to her. What did you do with the money?”
“Have you any right to ask me that question? If I borrowed ninety pounds from the bank, would they ask me what I did with it?”
“I neither know nor care what the bank would do. I am seeking information for Roberta Ruleson, and I shall take my own way to obtain it.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“What you did with that ninety pounds?”
“I banked it.”
“In what bank? There is no record of it in the Bank of Scotland, where I have always supposed, until lately, our funds were kept.”
“I did not put it in the Bank of Scotland. Every business man has an official banking account, and also a private banking account. I put that ninety pounds to my private bank account.”
“In what bank?”
“I do not give that information to anyone.”
“It must be pretty well known, since it has come as a matter of gossip to me.”
“You had better say ‘advice’ in place of gossip. What advice did you get?”
“I was told to look after my own money, that you were putting what little you made into the North British Security.”
“I suppose your clever brother told you that. If Reginald Rath does not leave my affairs alone, I shall make him.”
“You will have a bad time doing it. Your check books, no doubt, are in this valise. You will now write me a check on the North British for one hundred and eighty pounds. It is only fair that the North British should pay out, as well as take in.”
“Why should I give you a check for a hundred and eighty pounds?”
“I gave you ninety pounds when you went to your father’s funeral, I took ninety pounds to Culraine ten days ago, in answer to the letter Christine wrote.”
“You went to Culraine? You, yourself?”
“I went, and I had there one of the happiest days of my life. I got right into your mother’s heart, and taught her how to crochet. I saw and talked with your splendid sister. She is the most beautiful, intelligent girl, I ever met.”
“Such nonsense! She knows nothing but what I taught her!”
“She knows many things you know nothing about. I think she will become a famous woman.”
“When Mother dies, she will marry Cluny Macpherson, who is a Fife fisher, and settle down among her class.”
“I saw his picture, one of those new daguerreotypes. Such a splendid-looking fellow! He was a Fife fisher, he is now Second Officer on a Henderson boat, and wears their uniform. But it is Christine I am telling you about. There is a new Blackwood on the table at your right hand. Turn to the eleventh page, and see what you find.”
He did so, and he found “The Fisherman’s Prayer.” With a scornful face he read it, and then asked, “Do you believe that Christine Ruleson wrote that poem? I have no doubt it is the Domine’s work.”
“Not it. I saw the Domine. He and that lovable lad he has adopted – ”
“My nephew.”
“Dined at the hotel with me. I never before met such a perfect man. I did not know such men lived. The Domine was as happy as a child over Christine’s success. She got five pounds for that poem.”
“I do not believe it.”
“I read the letter in which it came. They praised the poem, and asked for more contributions.”
“If she is making money, why give her ninety pounds? It was absurd – ”
“It was just and right. You say you have made a few hundreds on this London case, you will now write me a check for the two loans of ninety pounds each.”
“I did not borrow the last ninety pounds. You took it to Culraine of your own will and desire. I do not owe the last ninety pounds. I refuse to pay it.”
“I will give you until tomorrow morning to change your mind. When Christine wrote you the letter, now in your hand, she had not a sixpence in the world – her luck came with the money I took her. I do not think she will ever require anyone’s help again. Oh, how could you grudge even your last penny to a sister like Christine?”
“She owes everything to me. I opened up her mind. I taught her to speak good English. I – ”
“‘I borrowed all her life’s savings, kept the money through the death of her father, the severe illness of her mother, and the total absence of anyone in her home to make money or in any way help her to bear the burden and fatigue of her great strait.’ You can tell me in the morning what you propose to do.”
Then she rose, and left the room, and Neil made no offer to detain her. In fact he muttered to himself, “She is a little premature, but it may be as well.”
In the morning he rose while it was yet dark, and leaving word with a servant that he was going to Dalkeith and might be away four days, or longer, he left in the gloom of fog and rain, and early twilight, the home he was never to enter again. He had grown accustomed to every luxury and refinement in its well-ordered plenty, and he had not the slightest intention of resigning its comfortable conditions, but he had no conception of the kind of woman with whom he had now to deal. The wives of Culraine, while dominant in business, gave to their men, in the household, almost an unquestioned authority; and Neil had no experience which could lead him to expect Roberta would, in any essential thing, dare to disobey him. He even flattered himself that in leaving her alone he had left her to anxiety and unhappiness, and of course, repentance.
“I will just give her a little lesson,” he said to himself, complacently. “She gave me until this morning. I will give her four or five days of solitary reflection, and no letters. No letters, Neil Ruleson! I think that treatment will teach her other people have rights, as well as herself.”
Roberta did not appear to be disquieted by his absence. She sent a messenger for her brother, and ate a leisurely, pleasant meal, with the Glasgow Herald for a companion; and before she had quite finished it, Reginald appeared.
“Your early message alarmed me, Roberta,” he said. “I hope all is well with you, dear?”
“Indeed, Reggie, I don’t know whether it is well, or ill. Sit down and I will tell you exactly how my life stands.” Then she related circumstantially all that had occurred – Neil’s first request for ninety pounds at his father’s death – his appropriation of that sum, and his refusal to say what had been done with it – Christine’s letter of recent date which she now handed to her brother. Reginald read it with emotion, and said as he handed it back to his sister: “It is a sweet, pitiful, noble letter. Of course he answered it properly.”
Then Roberta told him all the circumstances of her visit to Culraine, and when she had finished her narration, her brother’s eyes were full of tears.
“Now, Reginald,” she asked, “did I do wrong in going myself with the money?”
“Up to the receipt of Christine’s letter, you supposed it had been paid?”
“Certainly I did, and I thought Neil’s family rude and unmannerly for never making any allusion to its payment.”
“So you paid it again, resolving to fight the affair out with Neil, when he came home. You really accepted the debt, and made it your own, and be sure that Neil will find out a way to make you responsible for its payment in law. In point of truth and honor, and every holy affection, it was Neil’s obligation, and every good man and woman would cry shame on his shirking it. Roberta, you have made the supreme mistake! You have allied yourself with a mean, dishonorable caitiff – a creature in whose character baseness and wickedness meet; and who has no natural affections. As I have told you before, and often, Neil Ruleson has one idea – money. All the comforts and refinements of this home would be instantly abandoned, if he had them to pay for. He has a miserly nature, and only his love of himself prevents him from living on a crust, or a few potato parings.”
“Oh, Reginald, you go too far.”
“I do not. When a man can grudge his good, loving mother on her death-bed anything, or all that he has, he is no longer fit for human companionship. He should go to a cave, or a garret, and live alone. What are you going to do? My dear, dear sister, what are you going to do?”
“What you advise, Reginald. For this reason I sent for you.”
“Then listen. I knew a crisis of some kind must soon come between you and that – creature, and this is what I say – you must leave him. Every day you stay with him insults your humanity, and your womanhood. He says he will be four or five days away, we will have plenty of time for my plan. Before noon I will have here wagons and men in sufficient number to empty this house into Menzie’s granite storage in two days. Send the silver to the bank. I will put it in a cab, and take it myself. Pack things you value highly in one trunk, which can be specially insured. Our pictures we will place in the Ludin Picture Gallery. We can clear the house in three days, and on the morning of the fourth day, young Bruce Kinlock will move into it. If Neil can face Kinlock, it will be the worse for him, for Kinlock’s temper blazes if he but hear Neil’s name, and his hand goes to his side, for the dirk with which his fathers always answered an enemy.”
“Then, Reginald, when I have turned myself out of house and home, what follows?”
“We will take a passage to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans! Why there? Such an out-of-the-way place.”
“Exactly. That creature will argue thus – they have gone to some place on the Continent – very likely France. And he will probably try to make you a deal of trouble. I have never named New Orleans to anyone. Even our friends will never suspect our destination, for we shall go first to France, and take a steamer from some French port, for New Orleans. When we arrive there, we have a new world before us, and can please ourselves where we go, and where we stay. Now, Roberta, decide at once. We have time, but none too much, and I will work night and day to get you out of the power of such a husband.”
“He may repent.”
“We will give him time and reason to do so. He has been too comfortable. You have given him constant temptation to wrong you. He will not repent until he feels the pinch of poverty and the want of a home. Then he may seek you in earnest, and I suppose you will forgive him.”
“What else could I do? Would not God forgive him?”
“That is a subject for later consideration. If you will take my advice you must do it with all your heart, and be as busy as I will be. We want no altercation with him just yet.”
“I give you my word, Reggie, that for two years I will do as you advise. Then we will reconsider the question.”
Then Reginald clasped her hand, and drew her to his side. “It is for your salvation, dear, every way, and loneliness and deprivation may be for his good. We will hope so.”
“You once liked him, Reggie.”
“Yes, I did. He betrayed me in every way he could. He purposely quarreled with me. He wanted a free hand to follow out his own business ideas – which were not mine. But this is now idle talk. Neil will never be saved by people helping him. He must be left to help himself.”
“That is hope enough to work on. Tell me now, exactly what to do.”
Reginald’s plans had long been perfected, and by the noon of the third day the beautiful home was nothing but bare walls and bare floors. That same night, Reginald Rath and his sister left Glasgow by the midnight train, and the following morning, Bruce Kinlock, with his wife and five children, moved into the dismantled house, and in two days it was in a fairly habitable condition. There was, of course, confusion and a multitude of bustling servants and helpers, and a pretty, frail-looking little lady, sitting helplessly in a large chair, and Bruce ordering round, and five children in every place they ought not be, but there was universal good temper, and pleasurable excitement, and a brilliantly lighted house, when on the following Saturday night, Neil drove up to his residence.
He thought, at first, that Mrs. Ruleson had a dinner party, then he remembered Roberta’s reverence for the Sabbath, and knew she would not permit any dancing and feasting so near its daybreaking. The Sabbath observance was also his own strong religious tenet, he was an ardent supporter of Doctor Agnew and his extremist views, and therefore this illumination in the Ruleson mansion, so near to the Sabbath-day, offended him.
“Roberta knows that I am particular about my good name, and that I am jealously careful of the honor of the Sabbath, and yet – yet! Look at my house! It is lit up as if for a carnival of witches!” Then he hurried the cab man, and his keys being in his hand, he applied the latch-key to the lock. It would not move it, and the noise in the house amazed him. He rang the bell violently, and no one answered it. He raged, and rang it again. There was plenty of movement in the house, and he could plainly hear a man’s voice, and a guffaw of laughter. He kept the bell ringing, and kicked the door with his foot.
Then a passionate voice asked what he wanted.
“I want to get in. This is my house.”
“It is not your house. It never was your house.”
“What number is this?”
“Twenty-three, Western Crescent. What Tomfool asks?”
“This is my house. Open the door, or I will call the police.” He did call the policeman on the beat, and the man said, “A new family moved in yesterday, Sir, and I was taken from Hillside Crescent, only two days ago. I am on the night watch. I havena seen any o’ them yet, but there seems to be a big lot o’ them.”
“Do you know where the family went, who lived in twenty-three previous to this new tenant?”
“I heard they went abroad – left in a great hurry, as it were.”
Then Neil went back to the house, and rang the door bell with polite consideration. “The new-comers will certainly know more than the policeman,” he thought, “and I can get no letter till Monday morning. It will be very annoying to be in this doubt until then.”
He had plenty of time for these reflections, for the bell was not noticed, and he rang again with a little more impetuosity. This time it was answered by a huge Highlander, with a dog by a leash, and a dogwhip in his hand; and Neil trembled with fear. He knew the man. He had once been his lawyer, and lost his case, and the man had accused him of selling his case. There was no proof of the wrong, none at all, and it was not believed by anyone except Reginald Rath, and even Roberta allowed he was too prejudiced to be fair. These circumstances passed like a flash through Neil’s heart, as Bruce Kinlock glared at him.
“How dare you show your face at my door?” he asked. “Be off, you whippersnapper, or I’ll set the dog on you.”
“I have always believed, until the present moment, that this was my house. Can you tell me where my family has removed to?”
“You never had any right in this house but the right of sufferance. Honest Reginald Rath has taken your wife away – he’s done right. Ye know well you are not fit company for the lady Roberta. As for your family, they have the pity of everyone. What kind of a brute is it that has not a shilling for a dying mother, though he’s owing his family ninety pounds, and far more love than he deserves. Go, or it will be worse for you! You sneaking ne’er-do-well.”
Kinlock had spoken with inconceivable passion, and the very sight of the red-headed, gigantic Highlander, sputtering out words that cannot be written, and of the growling brute, that only required a relaxed hand to fly at his throat, made him faint with terror.
“I am sure, Mr. Kinlock – ”
“How daur you ‘mister’ me? I am Kinlock, of Kinlock! You had better take yourself off. I’m at the end of my patience, and I cannot hold this kind of a brute much longer. And if he grabs any kind of a human being, he never lets go while there’s life in him. I can’t say how he would treat you – one dog does not eat another dog, as a rule.” Then he clashed-to the door, and Neil was grateful. He did not ask again for it to be opened.
He went to his office. Perhaps there was a letter for him there. It was locked, and the man who kept the keys lived over the river. Thoroughly weary and distressed, and full of anxious forebodings, he went to a hotel, and ordered supper in his own room. He did not feel as if he could look anyone in the face, with this dreadful uncertainty hanging over his life. What was the matter?
Thinking over things he came to no conclusion. It could not be his few words with Roberta on the night of his return from London. A few words of contradiction with Roberta were almost a daily occurrence, and she had always accepted such offers of conciliation as he made. And he was so morally obtuse that his treatment of his mother and sister, as influencing his wife, never entered his mind. What had Roberta to do with his mother and Christine? Suppose he had treated them cruelly, what right, or reason, had she to complain of that? Everything was personal to Neil, even moralities; he was too small to comprehend the great natural feelings which make all men kin. He thought Kinlock’s reference to his dying mother a piece of far-fetched impertinence, but he understood very well the justice of Kinlock’s personal hatred, and he laughed scornfully as he reflected on the Highlander’s longing to strike him with the whip, and then set the dog to finish his quarrel.
“The Law! The gude Common Law o’ Scotland has the like o’ sic villains as Kinlock by the throat!” he said triumphantly. “He wad hae set the brute at my throat, if he hadna kent it wad put a rope round his ain red neck. I hae got to my Scotch,” he remarked, “and that isna a good sign. I’ll be getting a headache next thing. I’ll awa’ to bed, and to sleep. Monday will be a new day. I’ll mebbe get some light then, on this iniquitous, unprecedented circumstance.”
CHAPTER XI
CHRISTINE MISTRESS OF RULESON COTTAGE
Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee. – Esdras ii, ch. 10, v. 15.
Be not afraid, neither doubt, for God is your guide. – Esdras i, ch. 16, v. 75.
It was a cold winter day at the end of January, and a streak of white rain was flying across the black sea. Christine stood at the window, gazing at her brother’s old boat edging away to windward, under very small canvas. There was a wild carry overhead, out of the northeast, and she was hoping that Norman had noticed the tokens of the sky. Margot saw her look of anxiety, and said: “You needna worry yoursel’, Christine. Norman’s boat is an auld-warld Buckie skiff. They’re the auldest model on a’ our coasts, and they can fend in a sea that would founder a whole fishing fleet.”
“I noticed Norman had lowered his mainsail and hoisted the mizzen in its place, and that he was edging away to windward.”
“Ay, Norman kens what he must do, and he does it. That’s his way. Ye needna fash anent Norman, he’ll tak’ his old Buckie skiff into a gale that yachts wi’ their lockers fu’ o’ prizes wouldna daur to venture.”
“But, Mither dear, there’s a wind from the north blowing in savage gusts, and the black seas tumble wild and high, and send clouds of spindrift to smother the auld boat.”
“Weel, weel! She’ll give to the squalls, and it’s vera near the turn o’ the tide, then the wind will gae down, as the sea rises. The bit storm will tak’ itsel’ off in a heavy mist and a thick smur, nae doubt o’ it.”
“And Norman will know all this.”
“Ay, will he! Norman is a wonderfu’ man, for a’ perteening to his duty.”
Then the door opened, and one of the Brodie boys gave Christine two letters. “I thought ye wad be glad o’ them this gloomy day,” he said to Christine.
“Thank you, Alick! You went a bit out o’ your road to pleasure us.”
“That’s naething. Gude morning! I am in a wee hurry, there’s a big game in the playground this afternoon.” With these words the boy was gone, and Christine stood with the letters in her hand. One was from Cluny, and she put it in her breast, the other was from Roberta, and she read it aloud to her mother. It was dated New Orleans, and the first pages of the letter consisted entirely of a description of the place and her perfect delight in its climate and social life.
Margot listened impatiently. “I’m no carin’ for that information, Christine,” she said. “Why is Roberta in New Orleans? What is she doing in a foreign land, and nae word o’ Neil in the circumstance.”
“I am just coming to that, Mither.” Then Christine read carefully Roberta’s long accusation of her husband’s methods. Margot listened silently, and when Christine ceased reading, did not express any opinion.
“What do ye think, Mither?”
“I’ll hae to hear Neil’s side, before I can judge. When she was here, she said naething against Neil.”
“She did not name him at all. I noticed that.”
“Put her letter awa’ till we get Neil’s story. I’ll ne’er blame my lad before I hae heard his side o’ the wrang. I’m disappointed in Roberta. Wives shouldna speak ill o’ their husbands. It isna lawfu’, and it’s vera unwise.”
“The faults she names are quite in the line o’ Neil’s faults.”
“Then it’s a gude thing he was keepit out o’ the ministry. The Maraschal was gude enough. I’m thinking all the lad’s faults are quite in the line o’ the law. Put the letter awa’. I’m not going to tak’ it into my consideration, till Neil has had his say-so. Let us hae a good day wi’ a book, Christine.”
“So we will, Mither. I’ll red up the house, and read my letter, and be wi’ you.”
“Some wee, short love stories and poems, and the like. That verse you read me a week syne, anent the Lord being our shepherd, is singing in my heart and brain, even the now. It was like as if the Lord had but one sheep, and I mysel’ was that one. Gie me my crochet wark, and I will listen to it, until you are through wi’ your little jobs.”
The day grew more and more stormy, but these two women made their own sunshine, for Margot was now easy and pleasant to live with. Nothing was more remarkable than the change that had taken place in her. Once the most masterful, passionate, plain-spoken woman in the village, she had become, in the school of affliction and loss, as a little child, and the relations between herself and Christine had been in many cases almost reversed. She now accepted the sweet authority of Christine with pleasure, and while she held tenaciously to her own likings and opinions, she no longer bluffed away the opinions of others with that verbal contempt few were able to reply to. Her whole nature had sweetened, and risen into a mental and spiritual region too high for angry or scornful personalities.
Her physical failure and decay had been very slow, and at first exceedingly painful, but as her strength left her, and her power to resist and struggle was taken away with it, she had traveled through the Valley of the Shadow of Death almost cheerfully, for the Lord was with her, and her own dear daughter was the rod that protected, and the staff that comforted her.
They had a day of wonderful peace and pleasure, and after they had had their tea, and Margot had been prepared for the night, Christine had a long sweet session with her regarding her own affairs. She told her mother that Cluny was coming to see her anent their marriage. “He really thinks, Mither, he can be a great help and comfort to us baith,” she said, “and it is but three or four days in a month he could be awa’ from the ship.”
“Do you want him here, dearie?”
“It would be a great pleasure to me, Mither. I spend many anxious hours about Cluny, when the weather is bad.” And Margot remembered how rarely she spoke of this anxiety, or indeed of Cluny at all. For the first time she seemed to realize the girl’s unselfish love, and she looked at Christine with eyes full of tears, and said:
“Write and tell Cluny to come hame. He is welcome, and I’ll gie ye baith my blessing!” And Christine kissed and twice kissed her mother, and in that hour there was a great peace in the cottage.
This concession regarding Cluny was the breaking down of Margot’s last individual bulwark. Not by assault, or even by prudence, was it taken. A long service of love and patience made the first breach, and then Christine’s sweet, uncomplaining reticence about her lover and her own hopes threw wide the gates, and the enemy was told to “come hame and welcome.” It was a great moral triumph, it brought a great satisfaction, and after her surrender, Margot fell into a deep, restful sleep, and Christine wrote a joyful letter to Cluny, and began to calculate the number of days that must wear away before Cluny would receive the happy news.
A few days after this event Christine began to read to her mother “Lady Audley’s Secret,” and she was much astonished to find her sleepy and indifferent. She continued in this mood for some days, and when she finally threw off this drowsy attitude, Christine noticed a very marked change. What had taken place during that somnolent pause in life? Had the silver cord been loosed, or the golden bowl broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain? Something had happened beyond human ken, and though Margot made no complaint, and related no unusual experience, Christine knew that her spirit was ready to return unto God who gave it. And she said to herself:
“As I work, my heart must watch,
For the door is on the latch,
In her room;
And it may be in the morning,
He will come.”
In the afternoon little Jamie came in, and Christine told him to go very quietly to his grandmother, and speak to her. She smiled when he did so, and slowly opened her eyes. “Good-by, Jamie,” she said. “Be a good boy, be a good man, till I see ye again.”
“I will, Grandmother. I will! I promise you.”
“What do you think o’ her, Jamie?” asked Christine.
“I think she is dying, Auntie.”
“Go hame as quick as you can, and tell your feyther to come, and not to lose a minute. Tell him he must bring the Cup wi’ him, or I’m feared he’ll be too late.”
The Domine’s voice roused Margot a little. She put out her trembling hand, and the likeness of a smile was on her face. “Is He come?” she asked.
“Only a few more shadows, Margot, and He will come. I have brought the Cup with me, Margot. Will you drink the Wine of Remembrance now?”
“Ay, will I – gladly!”
The Domine and Christine ate and drank the sacred meal with her, and after it she seemed clearer and better, and the Domine said to her, “Margot, you will see my dear old friend, James Ruleson, very soon now. Will you tell him I send him my love? Will you tell him little Jamie is my son now, and that he is going to make the name of James Ruleson stand high in the favor of God and man?”
“I’ll tell him a’ anent Jamie – and anent Christine, too.”
“The dead wait and long for news of the living they love. Someway, sooner or later, good news will find them out, and make even heaven happier. Farewell, Margot!”
Later in the evening there came that decided lightening which so often precedes death. Margot asked for Norman, and while he knelt beside her, she gave him some instructions about her burial, and charged him to stand by his sister Christine. “She’ll be her lane,” she said, “’til my year is gane by, and the warld hates a lone woman who fends for hersel’. Stay wi’ Christine tonight. Tell Christine to come to me.”
When Christine was at her side, she asked, “Do you remember the verses in the wee, green book?”
“Called ‘Coming’?”
“Ay” – and she added very slowly the first few words she wished to hear – “It may be when the midnight – ”
“Is heavy upon the land,
And the black waves lying dumbly
Along the sand,
When the moonless night draws close,
And the lights are out in the house,
When the fires burn low and red,
And the watch is ticking loudly,
Beside the bed.
Though you sleep tired out, on your couch
Still your heart must wake and watch,
In the dark room.
For it may be that at midnight,
I will come.”
And then Norman said solemnly, “In such an hour as you think not, He will come.”
About ten o’clock Christine caught an anxious look in her eyes, and she asked, “What is it, Mither, dear Mither?”
“Neil!” she answered. “Did ye send for the lad?”
“Three days ago.”
“When he does come, gie him the words I send him. You ken what they are.”
“I will say and do all you told me.”
“But dinna be cross wi’ the laddie. Gie him a fair hearing.”
“If he is sorry for a’ he has done – ”
“He willna be sorry. Ye must e’en forgie him, sorry or not – Ye ken what the Domine said to me – when I spoke – o’ forgiving Neil – when he – was sorry?”
“The Domine said you were to remember, that while we were yet sinners God loved us, and Christ died for us.”
“Ay, while we – were – yet – sinners! that leaves room for Neil – and everybody else, Christine – Christine – I am weary, bairns – I will go to sleep now – gude night!”
Death had now become a matter of consent to Margot. She surrendered herself to her Maker, and bade her children “goodnight!”
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet and now astir,
until God’s hand beckoned her into His school of affliction. Now in the House not made with Hands she understands the meaning of it all.
The next week was a particularly hard one to Christine. In the long seclusion of her mother’s illness, and in the fascination which study now had for her, the primitive burial rites of Culraine were an almost unbearable trial. Every woman who had ever known Margot came to bid her a last earthly farewell. Some cried, some volubly praised her, some were sadly silent, but all were alike startled by the mighty change that affliction and death had made in the once powerful, handsome, tremendously vitalized woman, who had ruled them all by the sheer force of her powerful will and her wonderful vitality. Pale and cold, her raven hair white as snow, her large strong hands, shrunk to skin and bone, clasped on her breast, and at rest forever – they could hardly believe that this image of absolute helplessness was all that was left of Margot Ruleson.