‘Marry him!’ said Ailie, with a faint wonder stealing over her face. ‘We are meaning different things, you and me. Aye--I thought I was wedded to the Lord; I thought He was sending me forth to do His will. Oh, woman! what is your bairn or your man to that? And it was not that I deceived myself,’ she continued, rising into vehemence; ‘I never deceived myself. There was His promise, clear as the sun in the skies. Could I no see all the wonders of the latter days? I saw them in myself; I spoke in power; I rose up off my bed that might have been my dying bed--and a’ to be betrayed, and casten down, and deceived!’ ‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, wringing her hands, ‘what are you speaking of--what do you mean?’ For the moment Ailie made no answer. She never turned her head to one side or the other--but gazed before her into the air, seeing nothing. ‘Your Margret was right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘It’s sweetest to die--oh, it’s fine to die. Christ died, Isabel. We say it’s for us you know, and so it is for us, but He had to do it. Nae miracle saved Him; that’s what your Margret said.’ ‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath. At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears--a momentary paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I think it was some devil,’ she said. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking--not you that was always so good!’ ‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew--if it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I open my eyes, and my heart cries out--He has broken His word.’ ‘Ailie! Ailie!’ ‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it--all! I thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel, you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken His own word. He’s done nought--nought--nought, that He said!’ ‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end. ‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’ ‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing them to her breast.