It was somewhere about Christmas--just before--in that dread moment for the lonely and those who are in sorrow and distress, when all the rest of the world is preparing for that family festival, or pretending to prepare, that John Tatham was told one morning in his chambers that a lady wanted to see him. He was occupied, as it happened, with a client for whom he had stayed in town longer than he had intended to stay, and he paid little more attention than to direct his clerk to ask the lady what her business was, or if she could wait. The client was long-winded, and lingered, but John's mind was not free enough nor his imagination lively enough to rouse much curiosity in him in respect to the lady who was waiting. It was only when she was ushered in by his clerk, as the other went away, and putting up her veil showed the pale and anxious countenance of Mrs. Dennistoun, that the shock as of sudden calamity reached him. "Aunt!" he cried, springing from his chair.
"Yes, John--I couldn't come anywhere but here--you will feel for me more than any one."
Her lips were dry, she spoke with a little difficulty, but she nodded her head and held out to him a telegram which was in her hand. It was dated from a remote part of Scotland, far in the north. "Ill--come instantly," was all it said.
"And I cannot get away till night," cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a burst of subdued sobbing. "I can't start till night."
"Nothing, but that they had gone there--to somebody's shooting-box, which was lent them, I believe--at the end of the world. I wrote to beg her to come to me. She is--near a moment--of great anxiety. Oh, John, support me: let me not break down."
"You will not," he said; "you are wanted; you must keep all your wits about you. What were they doing there at this time of the year?"
"They have been visiting about--they were invited to Dunorban for Christmas, but she persuaded Philip, so she said, to take this little house. I think he was to join the party while she--I cannot tell you what was the arrangement. She has written very vaguely for some time. She ought to have been with me--I told her so--but she has always said she could not leave Philip."
Could not leave Philip! The mother, fortunately, had no idea why this determination was. "I went so far as to write to Philip," she said, "to ask him if she might not come to me, or, at least begging him to bring her to town, or somewhere where she could have proper attention. He answered me very briefly that he wished her to go, but she would not: as he had told me before I left town--that was all. It seemed to fret him--he must have known that it was not a fit place for her, in a stranger's house, and so far away. And to think I cannot even get away till late to-night!"