Some of the Lashcairn women wouldna think of
ruling themselves. Then they go after the man they need, like the
witch-woman. And--take him."
Marcella frowned.
"It sends them on strange roads sometimes," said Wullie, and would say
no more.
It was Marcella's rest night, and tired as she was, she lay thinking
long in the silence. It was a strangely windless night, but her thoughts
went whirling as though on wings of wind. Thoughts of fate, thoughts of
scepticism jostled each other: pictures came; she saw the apple tree
breaking through Lashnagar; she saw a landslide many years ago on Ben
Grief that had torn bare strange coloured rocks in the escarpment. Just
as she fell asleep, worn out, she thought that perhaps something
beautiful might outcrop from her family, something different, something
transforming. And then she was too tired to think any more and went to
sleep.
CHAPTER III
The "last lap" was not a very long one; it grew in distress as the days
went on. The worn-out heart that the Edinburgh doctor had graphically
described as a frail glass bubble, in his attempt to make Andrew
Lashcairn nurse his weakness, played cruel tricks with its owner. It
choked him so that he could not lie down; it weakened him so that he
could not stand up. He would gasp and struggle out of bed, leaning on
Marcella so heavily that she felt she could not bear his weight for more
than another instant.
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