Who Was Lost and Is Found: A NovelOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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Who Was Lost and Is Found: A Novel
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Criminals -- Fiction; Mothers and sons -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
She went home to her house, and there proceeded with her preparations
for her marriage, which had been going on merrily. She spent the
afternoon with her dressmaker, an occupation which pleased her very
much. She was not a needlewoman, she could not make anything that was
wanted for herself--but she could stand for hours like a lay figure to
be “tried on.” That did not weary her at all; and this process made the
time pass as perhaps nothing else could have done. Mr Logan once more
spent the evening with her, and she had again a time of dreadful
anxiety, in the fear that still Lew might appear, might meet the
minister at the door, and rouse a thousand questions. For the first time
it began to appear possible to her that her marriage might not come off
after all. She might never wear these new dresses--all dove-colour and
the softest semi-religious tints--as Mr Logan’s wife. She might have to
set out on the world again, and get her living somehow, instead of being
safe for the rest of her days. Instinctively she began to scheme for
that, as well as for the direct contrary of that, and in the same breath
arranged, in her mind, for the packing of the new dresses and their
transfer to the capacious cupboards in the manse, and for sending them
back to the dressmaker if she should have to turn her back on the manse
and fly. She did not feel sure now which thing would come to pass.
But once more the evening passed and nobody came. She stood for some
time at her door after the minister left: but this time in the darkness,
without any candle, listening earnestly for any step or movement in the
night; but no one came. Had he taken fright and gone away at once? That
was the thing most to be desired, but from that very fact the most
unlikely to have happened. It was too good to be true; and Lew was not
the man to be challenged and not to accept the challenge--unless he were
arrested already! That was always possible, but that too was almost too
good to be true. And then there was the chance that he might say
something about her, that he might spoil her fortune without doing any
good to his own. If she harmed him, it was for good reasons, to save
herself; and also, a plea not to be despised, to save poor good old Mrs
Ogilvy: but he, if he did so, would do it only out of revenge, and
without knowing even that it was she who had betrayed him. All that
night and the next day she was in a great state of nervous excitement,
not able to keep quiet. She went to the manse, and she came back again,
and could not rest anywhere. Apparently nothing had happened; for if
there had been a raid of the police, however private, and an arrest
effected at the Hewan--and she knew Lew would not tamely allow himself
to be taken--some news of it must have oozed out. It would be strange if
it passed off without bloodshed, she said to herself. She would have
understood very well that movement of his hand to his pocket which Mrs
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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