‘Aye!’ said Ailie from her window, ‘I will die, if I can. Oh, how easy it will be now, and sweet! When I think how I vexed Margret--and now she’s in the secret, and knows all; and I’m fighting with my own heart, and cast off by my God. John Diarmid, maybe I’ll be gone before you come back.’ ‘I would not hinder you, Ailie!’ he said, going up to her with sudden emotion and taking her listless white hands into his. ‘No, though you will reproach me before God, I would not keep you back--now when things have come so far, that is best.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s best. All’s gone from me--all’s gone! I’m of no use but to die. They say when the seed dies in the ground---- Oh, John Diarmid! if you’ll grant it was a lying spirit, and no a word from the Lord, I think I could die content.’ He did not make any answer, but stood before her holding her hands, gazing down with a certain anguish upon the white face from which all the tints of life had altogether died away. ‘Here’s Isabel,’ she went on, now for the first time rousing from her blank contemplation of the world around, and fixing her eyes on his face, ‘_her_ sister. It is as if it were Margret come herself, out of Heaven, out of her grave, to hear you. John Diarmid, it was never love for me, I know. Will you tell me again before _her_; was it the word of the Lord you brought me yon night, and no just the madness in your heart?’ Still he made her no answer, but stood and held her shadowy hand and gazed down into her face. ‘He said I was to wed him, Isabel, for it was the word of the Lord,’ cried Ailie, rising into excitement. ‘If he’ll answer me this I want no more on earth. If it was but his madness, and no the word of the Spirit, then I could lie down at my Lord’s feet and say we’ve sinned. Oh, can you no see the difference? Say we’ve sinned, it’s easy, easy! But say thou hast tempted me and made me fall; it’s bitterer than death.’ Isabel, with the tears streaming down her cheek, drew near at this passionate appeal. She did not understand what it meant, nor what she was called upon to do. But her mediation was asked for, and she answered the call by instinct. She laid her hand upon Mr. John’s arm and looked up with beseeching eyes in his face. ‘Oh, if you can ease her mind!’ cried Isabel, not knowing what she asked. ‘Would you have me say I had spoken a lie in the Lord’s name?’ he cried, and let his wife’s hands fall, turning away from them with the old fiery glow blazing up in his eyes.