She burst out crying, cast one look into Robert's face, and fled. What a change was in that face? The peach-colour was gone from her cheek; it was pale and thin. Her eyes were hollow, with dark shadows under them, the shadows of a sad sunset. A foreboding of the truth arose in his heart, and the tears rushed up into his eyes. The next moment the eidolon of Mary St. John, moving gracious and strong, clothed in worship and the dignity which is its own defence, appeared beside that of Jessie Hewson, her bowed head shaken with sobs, and her weak limbs urged to ungraceful flight. As if walking in the vision of an eternal truth, he went straight to Captain Forsyth's door. 'I want to speak to Miss St. John, Isie,' said Robert. 'She'll be doon in a minit.' 'But isna yer mistress i' the drawin'-room?--I dinna want to see her.' 'Ow, weel,' said the girl, who was almost fresh from the country, 'jist rin up the stair, an' chap at the door o' her room.' With the simplicity of a child, for what a girl told him to do must be right, Robert sped up the stair, his heart going like a fire-engine. He had never approached Mary's room from this side, but instinct or something else led him straight to her door. He knocked. 'Come in,' she said, never doubting it was the maid, and Robert entered. She was brushing her hair by the light of a chamber candle. Robert was seized with awe, and his limbs trembled. He could have kneeled before her--not to beg forgiveness, he did not think of that--but to worship, as a man may worship a woman. It is only a strong, pure heart like Robert's that ever can feel all the inroad of the divine mystery of womanhood. But he did not kneel. He had a duty to perform. A flush rose in Miss St. John's face, and sank away, leaving it pale. It was not that she thought once of her own condition, with her hair loose on her shoulders, but, able only to conjecture what had brought him thither, she could not but regard Robert's presence with dismay. She stood with her ivory brush in her right hand uplifted, and a great handful of hair in her left. She was soon relieved, however, although what with his contemplated intercession, the dim vision of Mary's lovely face between the masses of her hair, and the lavender odour that filled the room--perhaps also a faint suspicion of impropriety sufficient to give force to the rest--Robert was thrown back into the abyss of his mother-tongue, and out of this abyss talked like a Behemoth. 'Robert!' said Mary, in a tone which, had he not been so eager after his end, he might have interpreted as one of displeasure.