‘Then, lassie, gang you,’ said Stapylton’s messenger. ‘She’s been half an hour up the stair--half an hour, as I’m a sinner!--and her man cursing and swearing a’ the time on Maryburgh pier. Rise up and ask, like a bonnie lass! Tell her--answer or no answer--I maun away.’ ‘Oh, aye, I’ll gang,’ said Nelly Spence; ‘but give me my wean. Now she’s walking she’s mair trouble than when she was carried. She’s away, half way down the passage before ye ken.’ ‘Rin first and speak after,’ said the man. ‘Lord, woman, maun I gang up the stair to the mistress mysel?’ Thus stimulated, Nelly Spence, with little Margaret in her arms, went upstairs to the bedroom door. She knocked, but there was no answer. She called softly, then louder, getting frightened; finally, she opened the door and looked in. Isabel was standing in the same attitude, like a creature suddenly congealed into ice or snow. Her side face, which was visible to Nelly, was so ghastly white, and so like the face of an idiot, that the girl was dumb with panic. She went quickly forward, making a noise which at last seemed to catch Isabel’s ear. Her action, then, was as extraordinary as her looks had been. She turned suddenly round, and placed herself between the new-comer and the open desk, going back upon the latter and putting her hands behind her, as if to conceal it. ‘What do you want?’ poor Nelly supposed her to say; but it was a babble, instead of words. She was like the old people who were paralysed. ‘Oh, Isabel,’ cried Nelly, in her terror forgetting all conventional rules of respect, ‘Oh, Isabel, dinna look at me like that! I’ll rin for the doctor. You’ve had a stroke!’ ‘No!’ Isabel said, with an imperative gesture; and then, though her look did not change, she struggled into utterance. ‘What do you want--what is it?’ she said. ‘It’s the man,’ cried Nelly; ‘he’s wanting his answer. But, oh, you’re fitter to be in your bed. I’ll rin for the doctor, and tell him you’re no able. Oh, what will we do?--a young thing like you!’ ‘Tell him,’ said Isabel, regaining her voice by degrees--‘to tell--Mr. Stapylton--there’s no answer. You hear me, Nelly: there is--no answer. That is what he is to say.’ ‘But, eh,’ said Nelly, with anxious kindliness, ‘he’ll be awfu’ angry. If you would let me help you, and find it, whatever it was----’ ‘Hold your peace!’ said Isabel, harshly. ‘Go and tell him. There is--no answer. And leave me to myself. I have something here I want to do.’