One day, however, a sudden thought came to her of Isabell’s dying condition, and of the possible consequences of suspense, unbroken by any ray of hope. She set out towards the Spindle on a dreary afternoon, when the clouds hung low, and the sea was black with rising wind. It was the heaviest time of the day--that hour when life runs lowest--when Fanshawe had bidden her think of him. The few vessels visible were struggling between two dark leaden lines of sky and sea; nothing was cheerful or encouraging in the external surroundings. The waves came in with a threatening rush round the Spindle; the wind sighed with a sound of rain; and though she had not expected Isabell to be outside on such a day, yet a sense of unreasonable disappointment arose in Marjory’s mind at the absence of the well-known figure from the cottage-door. The door was closed, and no one was visible about. In all the earth and air there seemed no living thing, except in the few ships--big and little, which struggled across the horizon. “Oh mercy! to myself I said, If Lucy should be dead!” The thought was natural enough, so far as Isabell was concerned, but it filled Marjory with remorse as she hurried forward. If Isabell were to die before, one way or other, this matter was cleared up!--it was but too likely she would; but the thought seemed to lend wings to Marjory’s feet. In the little cottage chamber, however, which she thought so still, there was pain enough to demonstrate life, could she but have known. It was a dark little room at all times, for though there were two windows, these windows were little casements composed of very small and very dim panes of greenish glass--one in the front of the house towards the sea, and the other to the back. A smouldering fire burned in the grate, at which stood Isabell’s mother in her white mutch, making tea for her invalid. Isabell herself lay in the box, or press-bed, fitted into the wall, which is universal in such cottages. From the airless wooden enclosure her pale face looked out strangely, most unlike, in its pathetic beauty, to everything about. The mother’s back was turned, but between the fire and the bed sat Agnes, her ruddy, comely countenance overcast with vexation and care. She was doing nothing, her head was thrown back listlessly, and her hands laid in her lap. They were brown hands, bearing the traces of toil, and their idleness had a certain pathos in it. She sat, too, almost in the middle of the room, as if she had thrown herself down by chance, not knowing, or not caring where. As the mother went and came she stumbled over Agnes’s foot, or her chair, and uttered a little querulous exclamation: “Canna you sit in a corner? canna ye get something to do?” she said. “I canna bide to see a woman doing naething; take John’s stockings, if you’ll do nothing else.” “I have nae heart for stockings, or anything else!” said Agnes with a sigh.