He followed close upon her steps, but not a word with her was possible, and it seemed to Hector that she sped from him like a very wraith to avoid his addressing her. Had she, then, he asked himself, some dim suspicion of his feelings toward her, or was she but making haste from a sense of propriety?
Now that very morning Mrs. Macintosh had been talking kindly to Annie—as kindly, that is, as her abominable condescension would permit—and, what to Annie was of far greater consequence, had paid her her wages, rather more than she had expected, so that nothing now lay between her and the fall of her burden from her heavy-laden conscience, except, indeed, her preliminary confession. Dinner, therefore, being over, her mistress gone to the drawing room to prepare the coffee, and her master to his room to write a letter suddenly remembered, Hector was left alone with Annie. Whereupon followed an amusing succession of disconnected attempt and frustration. For no sooner had Mr. Macintosh left the room than Annie darted from it after him, and Hector darted after Annie, determined at length to speak to her. When Annie, however, reached the foot of the stair, her master was already up the first flight, and Annie's courage failing her, she, turning sharply round, almost ran against Hector, who was close behind her. The look of disappointment on her face, to the meaning of which he had no clew, quenching his courage next, he returned in silence to the dining room, where Annie was now hovering aimlessly about the table, until, upon his re-entrance, she settled herself behind Hector's chair. He turned half-round, and would have said something to her, but, seeing her pale and troubled, he lapsed into a fit of brooding, and no longer dared speak to her. Besides, his mother might come to the dining room at any moment!
Then Annie, thinking she heard her master's re-descending step, hurried again from the room; but only at once to return afresh, which set Hector wondering yet more. Why on earth should she be lying in ambush for his father? He did not know that she was equally anxious to avoid the eyes of her mistress. And while Annie was anxious to keep her secret from the tongue of Mrs. Macintosh, Hector was as anxious to keep his from the eyes of his mother until a fit moment should arrive for its disclosure. But he imagined, I believe, that Annie saw he wanted to speak to her, and thought she was doing what she could to balk his intention.
But the necessity for disclosure was strongest in Annie, and drove her to encounter what risk might be involved. So when at last she heard a certain step of the stair creak, she darted to the door, and left the room even while the hand of her mistress, coming to say the coffee was ready, was on that which communicated with the drawing room.
"I thought I heard Annie at the sideboard: is she gone?" she said.
"She left the room this moment, I believe," answered Hector.
"What is she gone for?"
"I cannot say, mother," replied Hector indifferently, in the act himself of leaving the room also, determined on yet another attempt to speak to Annie. In the meantime, however, Annie had found her opportunity. She had met Mr. Macintosh halfway down the last flight of stairs, and had lifted to him such a face of entreaty that he listened at once to her prayer for a private interview, and, turning, led the way up again to the room he had just left. There he shut the door, and said to her pleasantly:
"Well, Annie, what is it?"
I am afraid his man-imagination had led him to anticipate some complaint against Hector: he certainly was nowise prepared for what the poor self-accusing girl had to say.
For one moment she stood unable to begin; the next she had recovered her resolution: her face filled with a sudden glow; and ere her master had time to feel shocked, she was on her knees at his feet, holding up to him a new pound-note, one of those her mistress had just given her. Familiar, however, as her master was with the mean-looking things in which lay almost all his dealings, he did not at first recognize the object she offered him; while what connection with his wife's parlor-maid it could represent was naturally inconceivable to him. He stood for a moment staring at the note, and then dropped a pair of dull, questioning eyes on the face of the kneeling girl. He was not a man of quick apprehension, and the situation was appallingly void of helpful suggestion. To make things yet more perplexing, Annie sobbed as if her heart would break, and was unable to utter a word. "What must a stranger imagine," the poor man thought, "to come upon such a tableau?" Her irrepressible emotion lasted so long that he lost his patience and turned upon her, saying:
"I must call your mistress; she will know what to do with you!" Instantly she sprang to her feet, and broke into passionate entreaty.
"Oh, please, please, sir, have a minute's patience with me," she cried; "you never saw me behave so badly before!"
"Certainly not, Annie; I never did. And I hope you will never do so again," answered her master, with reviving good-nature, and was back in his first notion, that Hector had said something to her which she thought rude and did not like to repeat. He had never had a daughter, and perhaps all the more felt pitiful over the troubled woman-child at his feet.
But, having once spoken out and conquered the spell upon her, Annie was able to go on. She became suddenly quiet, and, interrupted only by an occasional sob, poured out her whole story, if not quite unbrokenly, at least without actual intermission, while her master stood and listened without a break in his fixed attention. By-and-by, however, a slow smile began to dawn on his countenance, which spread and spread until at length he burst into a laugh, none the less merry that it was low and evidently restrained lest it should be overheard. Like one suddenly made ashamed, Annie rose to her feet, but still held out the note to her master.
How was it possible that her evil deed should provoke her master to a fit of laughter? It might be easy for him in his goodness to pardon her, but how could he treat her offense as a thing of no consequence? Was it not a sin, which, like every other sin, could nowise at all be cleansed? For even God himself could not blot out the fact that she had done the deed! And yet, there stood her master laughing! And, what was more dreadful still, despite the resentment of her conscience, her master's merriment so far affected herself that she could not repress a responsive smile! It was no less than indecent, and yet, even in that answering smile, her misery of six months' duration passed totally away, melted from her like a mist of the morning, so that she could not even recall the feeling of her lost unhappiness. But, might not her conscience be going to sleep? Was it not possible she might be growing indifferent to right and wrong? Was she not aware in herself that there were powers of evil about her, seeking to lead her astray, and putting strange and horrid things in her mind?