“He has come here, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, could you get him to leave me in peace, as you did before? I have no right to trouble you; but if you have any power over him, oh, will you help me? will you get him to go away? I know I ought not to write to you about this; but I am very unhappy, and who can I go to Oh, Randal, if you have any power over him, get him to go away!”
“He has come here, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, could you get him to leave me in peace, as you did before? I have no right to trouble you; but if you have any power over him, oh, will you help me? will you get him to go away? I know I ought not to write to you about this; but I am very unhappy, and who can I go to Oh, Randal, if you have any power over him, get him to go away!”
At first she did not sign this at all; then she reflected that he might not know her handwriting, though she knew his. And then she signed it timidly with an M. L. But perhaps he might not know who M. L. was; other names began with the same letters. At last she wrote, very tremulously, her whole name, the Leslie dying into illegibility. She did not, however, think it necessary to carry this herself to the post-office, as she had done the letter to Bell. Grace was not so alarming as Jean, and the post-bag was safe enough, she felt. When she had thus stretched out her hand for help, Margaret was guilty of the first act of positive rebellion she had ever ventured upon. She refused to go down-stairs. The maid who took her message said, apologetically, that she had a headache; but Margaret herself made no such pretence. She could not keep up any fiction of gentle disability when the crisis was coming so near. And though she so shrank from confiding her griefs to any one, the girl, in her desperation, felt that the moment was coming in which, if need were, she would have strength to defy all the world.
All was dark in Margaret’s room, when Grace, having parted from her visitor, who had done his very best to be amusing, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory circumstances, came softly into her little sister’s room and bent over the bed.
“Poor darling!” Miss Leslie said, “how provoking, just when your old friend was here. But he is coming again, dearest Margaret, to-morrow, to begin his sketch. How nice of him to offer to make a sketch—and for me! I never knew anything so kind; for he scarcely knowsme.”
Thus fate made another coil round her helpless feet.
As for Rob, he went back to the inn in the village scarcely less disturbed than Margaret. He had come to a new chapter in his history. Her coldness, her manifest terror of him, her flight from the room in which he was, provoked him to the utmost. He was less cast down than exasperated by her desire to avoid him. He was not a man, he said to himself, from whom girls generally desired to escape, nor was he one with whom they could play fast and loose. He had not been used to failure. Jeanie, who had a hundred times more reason to be dissatisfied with him than Margaret could have, had been won over by his pleading even at the last moment, and was waiting now in London for the last interview, which he had insisted upon. And did Margaret think herself so much better than everybody else thatshewas to continue to fly from him? He was determined to subdue her. She should not cast him off when she pleased, or escape from her word. In the fervor of his feelings he forgot even his own horror at the vulgar expedient his mother had contrived, to bind the girl more effectually. Even that he had made up his mind to use, if need were, to hold as a whip over her. It was no fault of his, but entirely her own fault, if he was thus driven to use every weapon in his armory. He had written to his mother to send it to him before he came to the village, and now expected it every day. Perhaps to-morrow, before he set out for the Grange, it would arrive, and Margaret would see he was not to be trifled with. All this did not make him cease to be “in love with” her. He was prepared to be as fond, nay, more fond than ever, if she would but respond as she ought. No one had ever so used him before, and he would not be beaten by a slip of a girl. If he could not win her back as he had won Jeanie, then he would force her back. She should not beat him. Thus the struggle between them, which had been existing passive and unacknowledged for some time back, had to his consciousness, as well as Margaret’s, come to a crisis now.
Next morning she kept out of the way, remaining in her own room, though without any pretence of illness. Margaret was too highly strung, too sensible of the greatness of the emergency, to take refuge in that headache which is always so convenient an excuse; she would not set up such a feeble plea. She kept up-stairs in her room in so great a fever of mental excitement that she seemed to hear and see and feel everything that happened, notwithstanding her withdrawal. She heard him arrive, and she heard Grace’s twitterings of welcome; and then she heard the voices outside again, moving about, and divined that they were in search of the best point of view. They found it at last, in sight of Margaret’s window, where Rob established himself and all his paraphernalia fully in her view. It was for this reason, indeed, that he had chosen the spot, meaning, with one of his curious failures of perception, to touch her heart by the familiar sight, and call her back to him by the recollection of those early days at Earl’s-hall.
The attempt exasperated her; it was like the repetition of a familiar trick—the sort of thing he did everywhere. She looked out from behind the curtain with dislike and annoyance which increased every moment. It seemed incredible to her, as she looked out upon him, how she could ever have regarded him as she knew she had once done. All that was commonplace in him, lightly veiled by his cleverness, his skill, his desire to please, appeared now to her disenchanted eyes. The thought that he should ever have addressed her in the tenderest words that one human creature, can use to another; that he should ever have held her close to him and kissed her, made her cheek burn, and her very veins fill and swell with shame. But, notwithstanding all her reluctance, she had to go down to luncheon, partly compelled by circumstances, partly by the strange attraction of hostility, and partly by the distress of Grace at the possibilityof having to take her lunch “alone with a gentleman!” Margaret went down; but she kept herself aloof, sitting up stately and silent, all unlike her girlish self, at the table, where Miss Leslie did the honors with anxious hospitality, pressing her guest to eat, and, happily, leaving no room for any words but her own. Grace, however, was too anxious that the young people should enjoy themselves, not to perceive how very little intercourse there was between them, and, after vain attempts to induce Margaret to show Mr. Glen the wainscot parlor, she adopted the old expedient of running out of the room and leaving them together as soon as their meal was over.
“I must just speak to Bland,” she said, hurriedly, “I shall not be a moment. Margaret, you will take care of Mr. Glen till I come back.”
Margaret, who was herself in the very act of flight, was obliged to stay. She rose from her chair and stood stiffly by it, while Grace ran along the passage. Her heart had begun to beat so loudly that she could scarcely speak, but speak she must; and before the sound of her sister’s footsteps had died out of hearing, she turned upon the companion she had accepted so reluctantly, with breathless excitement.
“Mr. Glen,” she said, trembling, “I must speak to you. We cannot go on like this. Oh, why will you not go away? If you will not go away, I must. I will not see you again; I cannot, I cannot do it. For God’s sake go away!”
“Why should you be so urgent, Margaret?” he said. “What harm am I doing? It is hard enough to consent to see so little of you; but even a little is better than nothing at all.”
“Oh!” she cried, in her desperation, “do not stop to argue about it. Don’t you see—but you must see—that you are making me miserable? If there is anything you want, tell me; but oh, do not stay here!”
“What I want is easily enough divined. I wantyou, Margaret,” he said; “and why should you turn me away? Let us not spend the little time we have together in quarrelling. You are offended about something. Somebody has been speaking ill of me—”
“No one has been speaking ill of you,” she cried, indignantly. “Oh, Mr. Glen, even if I liked you to be here, it would be dishonorable to come when my sister Jean was away, and to impose upon poor Grace, who knows nothing, who does not understand—”
“Let me tell her,” he said, eagerly; “she will be a friend to us; she is kind-hearted. Let me tell her. It is not I that wish for concealment; I should like the whole world to know. I will go and tell her—”
“No!” Margaret cried, almost with a scream of terror. She stopped him as he made a step toward the door. “What would you tell her, or any one?—that I—care for you, Mr. Glen? Oh, listen to me! It is not that I have deceived you, for I never said anything; I only let you speak— But if I have done wrong, I am very sorry; if you told her that, it would not be true!”
“Margaret,” he said, with forced calmness, “take care what you are saying. Do you forget that you are my promised wife? Is that nothing to tell her? Do you think that I will let you break your vow without a word. There is more than love concerned, more than caring for each other, as you call it—there is our whole life!”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice sank to a whisper, in her extreme emotion; her face grew pallid, as if she were going to faint. She clasped her hands together and looked at him piteously, with wide-open eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I know; I promised, and I am false to it. Oh, will you forgive me, and let me go free? Oh, Mr. Glen, let me go free!”
“Is this all I have for my love?” he said, with not unnatural exasperation. “Let you go free! that is all you care for. What I feel is nothing to you; my hopes, and my prospects, and my happiness—”
Margaret could not speak. She made a supplicating gesture with her clasped hands, and kept her eyes fixed upon him. Rob did not know what to do. He paced up and down the room in unfeigned agitation; outraged pride and disappointed feeling, and an impulse which was half generosity and half mortification tempting him on one side, while the rage of failure and the force of self-interest held him fast on the other. He could not give up so much without another struggle. He made a hasty step toward her and caught her hands in his.
“Margaret!” he cried, “how can I give you up? This hand is mine, and I will not let it go. Is there nothing in your promise—nothing in the love that has been between us? Let you go free? Is that all the question that remains between you and me?”
They stood thus, making a mutual appeal to each other, he holding her hand, she endeavoring to draw it away, when the sound of a steady and solemn step startled them suddenly.
“If you please, miss,” said Bland, at the door, “there is a gentleman in the hall asking for Mr. Glen; and there is a person as says she’s just come off a journey, and wants Mr. Glen too. Shall I show them into the library, or shall I bring them here?”
Rob had dropped her hand hastily at the first sound of Bland’s appearance; and Margaret, scarcely knowing what she did, her head swimming, her heart throbbing, struggled back into a kind of artificial consciousness by means of this sudden return of the commonplace and ordinary, though she was scarcely aware what the man said.
“I am coming,” she answered, faintly; the singing in her ears sounded like an echo of voices calling her. All the world seemed calling her, assembling to the crisis of her fate. She did not so much as look at Rob, from whom she was thus liberated all at once, but turned and followed Bland with all the speed and quiet of great excitement, feeling herself carried along almost without any will of hers.
The hall at the Grange was a sight to see, that brilliant summer day. The door was wide open, framing a picture of blue sky and flowering shrubs at one end; and the sunshine, which poured in through the south window, caught the wainscot panels and the bits of old armor, converting them into dull yet magical mirrors full of confused reflections. There were two strangers standing here, as far apart as the space would allow, both full of excitement to find themselves there, and each full of wonder to find the other. They both turned toward Margaretas she came in, pale as a ghost in her black dress. Her eye was first caught by him who had come at her call, her only confidant, the friend in whom she had most perfect trust. The sight of him woke her out of her abstraction of terror and helplessness.
“Randal!” she cried, with a gleam of hope and pleasure lighting up her face.
Then she stopped short and paled again, with a horrible relapse into her former panic. Her voice changed into that pitiful “oh!” of wonder and consternation, which the sight of a mortal passenger called forth, as Dante tells us, from the spirits in purgatory. The second stranger was a woman; no other than Mrs. Glen, from Earl’s-lee, in her best clothes, with a warm Paisley shawl enveloping her substantial person, who stood fanning herself with a large white handkerchief in the only shady corner. These were the two seconds whom, half consciously, half willingly, yet in one case not consciously or willingly at all, the two chief belligerents in this strange duel had summoned to their aid.
Thestrangers made their salutations very briefly; as for Randal, he did not approach Margaret at all. He made her a somewhat stiff bow, which once more, in her simplicity, wounded her, though the sight of him was such a relief; but even the comfort she had in his presence was sadly neutralized by this apparent evidence that he did not think so charitably of her as she had hoped. Amidst all the pain and bewilderment of the moment, it was a pang the more to feel thus driven back upon herself by Randal’s disapproval. She gave him an anxious, questioning look, but he only bowed, looking beyond her at Rob Glen; and it was Mrs. Glen who hurried forward with demonstration to take and shake between both her own Margaret’s reluctant hand.
“Eh, but I’m glad to see you, Miss Margret!” Mrs. Glen said. “What a heat! I thought I would be melted, coming from the station, but a’s weel, now I’m safe here.”
“Will you forgive me, Miss Leslie,” said Randal, “if I ask leave to speak to Glen on business? I took the liberty of coming when I heard he was here. I should not have ventured to disturb you but for urgent business. Glen, I have heard of something that may be of great importance to you. Will you walk back with me to the station, and let me tell you what it is? I have not a moment to spare.”
“Na, na, ye’ll gang wi’ nobody to the station. How’s a’ with ye, Rob, my man?” cried Mrs. Glen; “you’re no going to leave me the first moment I’m here?”
Rob stood and gazed, first at one, then at the other. The conjunction did not seem to bode him any good, though he did not know how it could harm him. He looked at them as if they had dropped from the clouds, and a dull sense that his path was suddenly obstructed, and that he was being hemmed in by friends as well as by foes, came over him. “What do you want?” he said, hoarsely. The question was addressed chiefly to his mother, to whom he could relieve himself by a savage tone not to be endured by any stranger.
“Me?” said Mrs. Glen; “I want nothing but a kindly welcome from you and your bonnie young lady; that’s a’ I’m wanting. But I couldna trustyonintil a letter,” she added, in a lower tone—“I thought it was a great deal safer just to bring it myself.”
“But I,” said Randal, quickly, “have come upon business, Glen. Miss Leslie will excuse me for bringing it here, though I had not meant to do so. I have a very advantageous offer to tell you of. It was made to me, but it will suit you better. There is pleasant work and good pay, and a good opening. Could you not put off this happy meeting for a little, and listen to what I have to say?”
“Good pay, and a good opening? Rob, my man,” said Mrs. Glen, “leave you me with Miss Margret—we were aye real good friends—and listen like a good lad to what Mr. Randal says. A good opening, and good pay—eh! but you’re a kind lad when there’s good going no to keep it to yourself.”
“If Glen will not give me his attention, I may be tempted to keep it to myself,” said Randal, with a smile—“and there is not a moment to lose.” He had meant what he said when he pledged himself to serve her, to do anything for her that his power could reach. Nobody but himself knew what a sacrifice it was that he was prepared to make. And there was not a moment to lose. It was evident by the look of all parties, and by the unexplained appearance of Mrs. Glen, that the crisis was even more alarming, more urgent than he thought. The only thing he could do was to insist upon the prior urgency ofhisbusiness. Could he but get Rob away! Randal knew that Margaret’s natural protectors were on the way to take charge of her: he made another anxious appeal. “Pardon me if I have no time for explanations or apologies,” he said; “you may see how important it is, when I have come from London to tell you of it. Glen, you ought not to neglect such an opportunity. Miss Leslie will excuse you—it may make your fortune. Won’t you come with me, and let me tell you? I can’t explain everything here—”
“Eh, Rob,” said Mrs. Glen, who had pressed forward anxiously to listen. “What’s half an hour, one way or another? I would gang with him, and I would hear what he’s got to say. We’re none so pressed for time, you and me. What’s half an hour? and me and your bonnie Miss Margret will have our cracks till ye come back. Gang away, my man, gang away!”
Rob stood undecided between them, looking from one to another, distrusting them all, even his mother. Why had she come here? They seemed all in a plot to get him away from this spot, where alone (he thought) he could insist upon his rights. “How did he know I was here?” he said, between his teeth.
As for Margaret, everything was in a confusion about her. She did not comprehend why Randal should stand there without a word to her, scarcely looking at her. Was this the way to serve her? And yet was it not for her sake that he was trying to take the other claimant—this too urgent suitor—away? As she stood there, passive, confused, and wondering, Margaret,standing with her face to the door, was the first to perceive, all at once detaching themselves from the background of the sky, two figures outside, whose appearance brought a climax to all the confusion within. In the pause within-doors, while they all waited to see what Rob would do, a brisk voice outside suddenly took up and occupied the silence:
“I think most likely they don’t expect us at all. You never can be sure of Grace. Her very letters go astray as other people’s letters never do. The post itself goes wrong with her. If they had expected me, they would have sent the carriage. But I declare, there are people in the hall! I wonder,” said Mrs. Bellingham, in a tone of wonder, not unmingled with indignation, “if they have been having visitors—visitors, Grace and Margaret, while I have been away?”
No one said a word. Randal, who had been standing with his back to the door, turned round hastily, and the others stood startled, not knowing what was about to happen, but with a consciousness that the end of all things was drawing near. Mrs. Bellingham marched in, with mingled curiosity and resolution in her face. She came in, as the head of a house had a right to come, into a place where very high jinks had been enacted in his or her absence. She looked curiously at Rob Glen and his mother, who faced her first, and said “Oh!” with a slight swing of her person—a half bow, a half courtesy, less of courtesy than suspicion; but Jean was always aware what was due to herself, and could not be rude. When the third stranger caught her eye, she gave way to a little outcry of genuine surprise—“You here, Randal Burnside!”
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “You must think it very strange; but I will explain everything to you afterward.”
“Oh, I am sure there is no need for explanations; your father’s son can never be unwelcome,” said Mrs. Bellingham, guardedly. “Well, Margaret, my dear, so this is you! I think either you or Grace might have thought of sending the carriage; but you have been having company, I see—where is Grace?”
“Oh, dearest Jean!” cried Miss Leslie, rushing forward, “to think that you should arrive like this without any one expecting you! And oh, dear Ludovic, you too! I am sure—”
“You have been having company, I see,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “I trust we are not interrupting anything. I will take a seat here for a little; I think it is the coolest place in the house. You had better ask your friends to take chairs, Grace.”
“Oh, dearest Jean, it is Mr. Glen, the clever artist, you know, who—but I don’t know the—the—” What should Miss Leslie have said? To call Mrs. Glen a lady was not practicable, and to call her a woman was evidently an offence against politeness. “I assure you,” she said in her sister’s ear, “I don’t know in the least who she is.”
Mrs. Bellingham sat down in the great chair which stood by the fireplace, a great old carved throne in black wood, which looked like a chief-justice’s at least. It was close to the door, and served to bar all exit. Sir Ludovic had come in a minute after her, and he had been engaged in greeting his little sister Margaret, and shaking hands with Randal Burnside, whom he was very glad to see, with a little surprise, but withoutarrière-pensée. But when the salutations were over he looked round him, and with a sudden, sharp exclamation, discovered Rob Glen by his side.
“Margaret,” he said at once, “you had better retire; my dear, you had better retire. I don’t think this is a place for you.”
“I beg your pardon, Ludovic,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “where her brother and her sisters are is just the right place for Margaret. I have not the pleasure of knowing the Miss Leslies’ friends—neither do you, I suppose; but Margaret will just remain, and I dare say everything will be cleared up. It is a very fine day,” Jean said, with a gracious attempt to conciliate everybody, “and very good for bringing on the hay.”
After this there was a slight pause again; but Mrs. Glen felt that this was a tribute to her own professional knowledge; and as no one else took up the rôle of reply, she came forward a step, with a little cough and clearing of her throat.
“England’s a great deal forwarder in that respeck than we are in our part of the world,” she said. “It’s no muckle mair than the spring season wi’ us, and here it’s perfit simmer. We’ll no be thinking o’ the hay for this month to come; but I wouldna wonder if it was near cutting here.”
Meanwhile, Sir Ludovic had gone up to Rob Glen in great agitation. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Why did you come here? I never thought you would have taken such a step as this. I gave you credit for more straightforwardness, more gentlemanly feeling—”
“There has been enough of this!” cried Rob. Exasperation is of kin to despair. Amidst all these bewildered faces looking at him, not one was friendly—not one looked at him as the future master of the house, as the man who was one day to be Margaret’s husband should have been looked at. And Margaret herself had no thought of standing by him. She had shrunk away from him into the background, as if she would have seized the opportunity to escape. “There has been enough of this,” he said; “I do not see any reason why I should put up with it. If I am here, it is because there is no other place in the world where I have so much right to be. I have come to claim my rights. Margaret can tell you what right I have to be here.”
“Margaret!” repeated Mrs. Bellingham, wondering, in her high-pitched voice.
“Glen!” cried Randal, interrupting him with nervous haste—“I told you I had an important proposal to make to you. When you know that I came down expressly to bring it, I think I might have your attention at least. Will you come with, me and hear what it is? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bellingham; I do not want to interfere with any other explanation; but I came down on purpose, and Glen ought to give me an answer, while I have time to stay—”
“Eh, bide a moment, bide a moment, Mr. Randal; gie him but a half-hour’s grace,” cried Mrs. Glen. “Speak up, Rob, my bonnie man.”
Randal, though he felt his intervention useless, made one last effort. “I must have my answer at once,” he cried, impatient. “I tell you it is for your interest, Glen—”
“I don’t think, gentlemen,” said Sir Ludovic,“that this is a place to carry on an argument between yourselves, with which the ladies of this house, at least, have nothing to do.”
“If you will not come, I at least must go!” Randal cried, with great excitement. He gave her an anxious glance, which she did not even see, and threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. “I can do no good here,” he said.
Rob glared round upon them all—all looking at him—all hostile, he thought. He had it in his power, at least, to frighten these people who looked down upon him, who would think him not good enough to mate with them. He turned toward Margaret, who still stood behind him, trembling, and called out her name in a voice that made the hall ring.
“Margaret! it is you that have the first right to be consulted. Sir Ludovic, you know as well as I do that Margaret is pledged to be my wife.”
“His wife!” Mrs. Bellingham sat bolt-upright in her chair, and Miss Leslie, with a little shriek, ran to Margaret’s side, with the instinct of supporting what seemed to her the side of sentiment against tyranny. “Darling Margaret! lean upon me—let me support you; I will never forsake you!” she breathed, fervently, in her young sister’s ear.
“Silence!” cried Sir Ludovic; “how dare you, sir, make such a claim upon a young lady under age? If you had the feelings of a gentleman—”
At this moment. Mrs. Glen stepped forward to do battle for her son.
“You may think it fine manners, Sir Ludovic, to cast up to my Rob that he’s no a gentleman; but it doesna seem fine manners to me. Ay, that she is! troth-plighted till him, as I can bear witness, and by a document, my ladies and gentlemen, that ye’ll find to be good in law.”
“Mother, hold your tongue!” cried Rob. A suppressed fury was growing in him; he felt himself an alien among these people whom he was claiming to belong to, but of whom nobody belonged to him, except the mother, whose homeliness and inferiority was so very apparent to his eyes. He was growing hoarse with excitement and passion. “Sir Ludovic knows so well what my position is,” he said, with dry lips, “that he has asked me to give it up; he has tried before now to persuade me that I was required to prove myself a gentleman by giving it up. A gentleman! what does that mean?” cried Rob. “How many gentlemen would there be left if they were required to give up everything that is most dear to them, to prove the empty title? Do gentlemen sacrifice their interests and their hopes for nothing?—or do you count it honorable in a gentleman to abandon the woman he loves? If so, I am no gentleman, as you say. I will not give up Margaret. She chose me as much as I chose her. She is frightened, and you may force her into abandoning her betrothed and breaking her word. Women are fickle, and she is afraid of you all; but she is mine, and I will never give her up.”
“Margaret,” said Sir Ludovic, taking her hand and drawing her forward, “give this man his answer. Tell him you will have none of him. You may have been imprudent—”
“But she can be prudent now,” said Rob Glen, with a smile; “she can give up, now that she is rich, the man that loved her when she was poor. Margaret! yes, you can please them and leave me because I have nothing to offer you. They say such lessons are easily learned; but I would not have looked for it from you.”
Margaret stood in the centre, in face of them all, with her brain reeling and her heart wrung. She had a consciousness that Randal was there too, looking at her, which was a mistake, for he had left the hall hastily when his attempt was foiled; but all the others were round her, making a spectacle of her confusion, searching her with their eyes. What had she to do but to repeat the vehement denial which she had given to Rob himself not half an hour ago? She wrung her hands. The case was different: here he was alone, contending with them all for her. Her heart ached for him, though she shrank from him. She gave a low cry and hid her face in her hands: how could she desert him? how could she cast him off, when he stood thus alone?
“You see,” said Rob, triumphantly, with a wonderful sense of relief, “she will not cast me off as you bid her. She is mine. You will never be able to separate us if we are true to each other. Margaret, my darling, lift your sweet face and look at me. All the brothers in the world cannot separate us. Give me your hand, darling, for it is mine.”
“Stand off, sir!” cried Sir Ludovic, furious; and Mrs. Bellingham, coming down from her chair as from a throne, came and stood between them, putting out her hand to put the intruder away. Jean was all but speechless with wonder and rage. She put her other hand upon Margaret’s shoulder and pushed her from her, giving her a shake, as she did so, of irrepressible wrath. “What is the meaning of all this? Put those people out, Ludovic! put this strange woman, I tell you, to the door!”
“Put us out!” cried Mrs. Glen. “I’ll daur ye to do that at your peril! Look at what I’ve got here. I have come straight from my ain house to bring this, that has never left my hands since that frightened lassie there wrote it out. It’s her promise and vow before God, that is as good as marriage in Scots law, as everybody kens. Na, you’ll no get it out of my hands. There it is! You may look till you’re tired. You’ll find no cheatery here.”
“Did you write this, Margaret?” said her brother, in tones of awful judicial severity, as it seemed to her despairing ears. They all gathered round, with a murmur of excitement.
“Marriage in Scots law! good Lord, anything is marriage in Scots law,” Mrs. Bellingham said, under her breath, in a tone of horror. Grace burst out into a little scream of excitement, wringing her hands.
“Did you write this, Margaret?” still more solemnly Sir Ludovic asked again. Margaret uncovered her face. She looked at them all with her heart sinking. Here was the final moment that must seal her fate. It seemed to her that after she had made her confession there would be nothing for her to do but to go forth, away from all she cared for, with the two strangers who had her in their power. She clasped her hands together, and looked at the group, which was all blurred and indistinct in her eyes. She could not defend herself, or explain herself at such a moment, but breathed out from her very soul a dismal, reluctant, almost inaudible “Yes!” which seemed the very utterance of despair.
“Ay, my bonnie lady,” said Mrs. Glen, triumphant, “you never were the one to go against your ain act and deed. Me and my Rob, we ken you better than all your grand friends. Weel I kent that whatever they might say, you would never go against your ain hand of write.”
Rob had been standing passive all this time, with such a keen sense of the terror in Margaret’s eyes, and the contempt that lay under the serious trouble of the others, as stung him to the very centre of his being. The unworthiness of his own position, the bewildered misery of the girl whom he was persecuting, the seriousness of the crisis as shown by the troubled looks of the brother and sister who were bending their heads over the paper which his mother held out so triumphantly—all this smote the young man with a sudden, sharp perception. He was not of a mean nature altogether. The quick impulses which swayed him turned as often to generosity as to self-interest; and all this while there had been films about this pursuit of the young heiress which had partially deceived him as to its true nature.
What is there in the world more hard than to see ourselves as we appear to those on the other side? A sudden momentary overwhelming revelation of this came upon him now. He did not hear the whispers of “compromise it”—“offer him something—offer him any thing,” which Jean, utterly frightened, was pouring into her brother’s ear. He saw only the utter abandonment of misery in Margaret’s face, the vulgar triumph in his mother’s, the odious position in which he himself stood between them. In a moment his sudden resolution was taken: he pushed in roughly into the group, in passionate preoccupation, scarcely seeing them, and snatched the scrap of paper she held out of his mother’s hands. “Margaret!” he cried, loudly, in his excitement, “look here! and here! and here!” tearing it into a thousand fragments. He pushed his mother aside, who rushed with a shriek upon him to save them, and tossed the little white atoms into the air. “I asked for your love,” he said, his eyes moistening, his face glowing, “not for papers or promises. Give me that, or nothing at all.”
Sudden tears rushed to Margaret’s eyes; she did not know what had happened, but she felt that she was saved.
“Oh, Rob!” she cried, turning to him, putting out her hands.
Sir Ludovic sprang forward and took both these hands into his.
“Margaret, do you want to marry him?” he cried.
“Oh no, no, no; but anything else!” the girl said. “It was never he that didthat. He was always kind—kinder than anybody in the world: I am his friend! Let me go, Ludovic! Rob,” she said, going up to him, giving him her hand, the tears dropping from her eyes, “notthat; but I am your friend; I will always be your friend, whatever may happen, wherever we may be. I will never forget you, Rob. Good-bye! You are kind again, you are like yourself; you are my old Rob that always was my friend.”
Rob took her hands into his. He stooped over her and kissed her on the forehead: he would not give in without a demonstration of his power. Then he flung her hands away from him almost with violence, and turned to the door.
“It seems my fate never to be able to do what is best for myself,” he said, looking back with a wave of his hand and an irrepressible burst of self-assertion, as he turned and disappeared among the flowering bushes outside the open door.
Robissued forth out of the Grange discomfited and beaten, but without the sense of moral downfall which had been bowing him to the ground. His heart was melted, his spirit softened. He was defeated, but he was not humiliated. He had come off with all the honors of war—not an insulted coward, but a magnanimous hero. “All is lost but honor,” he said to himself, with an expansion of his breast. His eyes were still wet with the dew of generous feeling: he had not been forced into renunciation; he had himself evacuated the untenable position. There was a little braggadocio in this self-consciousness—a little even of what in school-boy English is called swagger; but still he had a certain right to his swagger. He had taken the only possible way of coming out with honor from the dilemma in which he had placed himself. He said to himself that it was a great sacrifice he had made. All the hopes upon which he had dwelt so long and fondly were gone; he was all at sea again for his future, and did not know what to do. What was he to do? He could not return to the aimless life he had pursued in his mother’s house; and by this time he had found out that it was by no means so easy as he had supposed to get fortune and reputation in London. What should he do? He could hope nothing from his mother. He knew well with what reproaches she would overwhelm him, what taunts she would have in her power. He must do something to secure himself independence, though for so long he had hoped that independence was coming to him in the easiest way—a rich wife—not only rich, but fair—the “position of a gentleman,” most dearly cherished of all the gifts of fortune—a handsome house, leisure and happiness, and everything that heart of man could desire. The breaking up of this dream called forth a sigh when the first elation of his victory over himself was over, and then he began to droop as he walked on. No elevation in the social scale was likely to come now. Rob Glen, the son of a small farmer, he was, and would remain; not the happy hero of a romance, not the great artist undeveloped, not the genius he had thought. Thus the brag and the swagger gradually melted away; the sense of moral satisfaction ceased to give him as much support as at first—even the generous sentiment sank into a sense of failure. What was to become of him? He walked on, dull but dogged, going steadily forward, but scarcely knowing where he was going; and thus came upon Randal Burnside walking along the same road before him, more anxious and excited, and not much less discouraged and melancholy than he.
Randal’s face brightened slightly at the sight of him.
“You have come, after all, Glen,” he said; “I had almost given you up.”
“I gave myself up before I came,” said Rob.
“What do you mean? I suppose they were hard upon you—perhaps you could scarcely expect it to be otherwise; but with your good-fortune you may easily bear more than that,” said Randal: then he checked himself, remembering that Margaret’s horror of her lover’s presence pointed to not much good-fortune. “Let me tell you now what my business was,” he said, with a sigh. He was too loyal to depart from his purpose; but though (he thought) he would have given up life itself to serve Margaret, yet he could not make this sacrifice without a sigh. He told his companion very briefly what it was. It was an offer from a newspaper to investigate a subject of great popular interest, requiring some knowledge of Scotch law. “But that I could easily coach you in,” Randal said. He went into it in detail, showing all its advantages, as they walked along the country road. The first necessity it involved was a speedy start to the depths of Scotland, close work for three months, good pay, and possible reputation. Rob listened to the whole with scarcely a remark. When Randal paused, he turned upon him hastily:
“This was offered not to me, but to yourself,” he said.
“Yes; but you know a little of the law, and I could easily coach you in all you require.”
“And why do you offer it to me?”
“Come,” said Randal, with a laugh, “there is no question of motive; I don’t offer it to you from any wish to harm you. To tell the truth, it would suit me very well myself.”
“And you would give it to me, to relieveherof my presence?” cried Rob. “I see it now! Burnside, will you tell me honestly, what is your reward to be?”
“I have neither reward nor hope of reward,” cried Randal; “evidently not even a thank-you. I would not answer such a question, but that I see you are excited—”
“Yes, I am excited— I have good cause. I have given her up, and every hope connected with her; so there is no more need to bribe me,” said Rob, with a harsh laugh. “Keep your appointment to yourself.”
“Will you take it, or will you leave it, Glen? What may have happened otherwise is nothing to me—”
“There is the train,” said Rob. “No! I’ll take nothing, either from her dislike or your friendship—nothing! There are still some in the world that care more for me than charity. Good-bye.”
He made a dash up the bank, where a train was visible, puffing and pulling up at the little station—the legitimate road being a quarter of a mile round, and hopeless.
“Come back!” cried Randal; “you will break your neck. There is another train—”
Rob made no reply, but waved his hand, and dashed in wild haste over ditch and paling. Randal stood breathless, and saw him reach the height and spring into a carriage at the last moment, as the train puffed and fretted on its way. The spectator did not move—what was the use? He had no wish to take the same wild road: he stood and looked after the long white plume as it coursed across the country.
“He has got it, and I have lost it,” he said; but Randal smiled to himself. A sense of ease, of relief, and pleasure after so much pain, came over him. There was no longer any hurry. Should he go forward? should he turn back?—it did not much matter; he had two or three hours on his hands before he could get away.
The rush and noise of the train was a relief, on the other hand, to the traveller. As it pounded along, with roll and clang, and shrill whistle, the sudden hurry of his thoughts kept time. He had not a moment to lose. Now and then, when its speed slackened, he got up and paced about the narrow space of the carriage, as if the continued movement got him on the faster. When he reached London, he jumped into a hansom and dashed through the crowded Strand to one of the little streets leading down toward the river. Arrived there, he thundered at a door and rushed up-stairs, three steps at a time, till he came to a little room at the top of the house, where the sole occupant, a young woman, had been sitting, looking wistfully out upon a glimpse of the river, which showed in dim twilight reflections at the foot of the street, for it was almost night. Her father was out, and Jeanie sat alone. She had “nae heart” to walk about the streets, to look in at the dazzling shop-windows, to take any pleasure in the sight of London. She was thinking—would she see him again? would he come and bid her farewell, as he said, “The day after the morn, the day after the morn?” she was saying to herself, sometimes putting up her hand to brush away a furtive tear from the corner of her eyes. That was the final day; after which, in this world, she should see Rob’s face no more.
“Jeanie,” he cried, coming in breathless, “I have come back to you as I said.” Jeanie stumbled up to her feet, and fell a crying with a tremulous smile about her lips.
“Oh, I’m glad, glad to see you,” she cried, “once mair, once mair, though it’s naething but to say farewell! We’re to sail the day after the morn.”
“The day after the morn.” He took Jeanie’s hands, which gave themselves up to his as Margaret’s shrinking fingers had never done, and looked into her pretty, rustic face, all quivering with love and the anguish of parting. Jeanie had made her little pretences of pride, her stand of maidenly dignity against him; but at this moment all these defences were forgotten. He had come so suddenly; and it was this once and never more, never more in all the world again. “The day after the morn,” repeated Rob; “then there will just be time. I am coming with you; and if you will have a man without a penny, Jeanie, it shall be as man and wife that you and I will go.”
She gave a cry of sharp pain and drew her hands out of his. “How dare you speak like that to me that means no harm? How dare you speak like that to me—and you another lass’s lad, and never mine?”
“I am nobody’s but yours,” he said, “and, Jeanie, you need not try to deceive me. You never were but mine.”
“But that’s nae reason,” she cried, wildly, “to come and make a fool of me to my face, Rob Glen. Oh, go, go to them you belong to!I thought I might have said farewell to you without another word; but even that canna be.”
“There will never be farewell said between you and me, Jeanie,” said Rob, seriously, “never from this moment till death does us part.”
When Rob Glen, stung at once by the kindness and severity of which he had been the object, took this sudden resolution, and with a wild dash of energy, and without a pause, thus carried it out, Randal was left alone upon the country road, all strange and unfamiliar to him, but with which he seemed all at once to have formed so many associations, with two or three hours at his disposal. He stood and watched the train till it was out of sight, idly, with the most singular sense of leisure in opposition to that hurry and rush. From the moment when Rob had dashed up the bank, Randal had felt no longer in any hurry or anxiety about the train. It did not matter if he lost his train—nothing, indeed, seemed to matter very much for the moment. He saw the carriage that contained Rob rush out of sight while he was standing in the same place: if he chose to spend an hour in the same place, thinking over the causes which had carried Rob away, what would it matter? He had plenty of time for that or anything else—no hurry or care—the whole afternoon before him. Would it not be better, more civil to go back, and pay his respects at the Grange as he ought? He had rushed into the house like a savage, and rushed out again without a word to say for himself. Evidently this was not the way to treat ladies to whom he owed the utmost respect. He would go back. He turned accordingly, and went back; still at the most perfect leisure. Plenty of time; no hurry one way or another.
He had not gone far, however, before he met a curiously-matched pair coming up along the road together—Mrs. Glen talking loudly and angrily, Sir Ludovic walking beside her, sometimes saying a word, but for the most part passive, listening, and taking no notice. Randal heard her long before he saw the pair on the windings of the road. Mrs. Glen did not know whether to abuse or defend her son. She did both by turns. “A fine son, to leave me, that has aye thought far ower muckle of him, to find my way home as best I can, after making a fool of himself and a’ belanging to him! But where was he to gang, poor lad? abused on a’ hands—even by those that led him into his trouble,” she cried. There was no pause in her angry monologue. And, indeed, the poor woman, in her great Paisley shawl, with the hot sun playing upon her head, her temper exasperated, her body fatigued, her hopes baffled, might have something forgiven to her. “Gentry!” she cried, as she began to ascend the slope which led to the station, and which Randal was coming down; “a great deal the gentry have done for my family or me! Beguiled my Rob, the cleverest lad in a’ Fife, till he’s made a fool o’ himself and ruined a’ his prospects; and brought me trailing after him to a country where there’s nae kindness nor hospitality—among people that never offer you so much as a stool to rest your weary limbs upon, or a cup o’ tea to refresh you. Eh! if that’s gentry, I would rather have the colliers’ wives or the fisher bodies in Fife, let alone a good farm-house, and that’s my ain.”
“Mrs. Glen,” said Sir Ludovic, “I am sure my sisters would have wished you to rest and refresh yourself.”
“Ay, among their servant-women, no doubt—if I would have bowed myself to that. I’ve paid rent to the Leslies for the last thirty years—nae doubt but they durstna have refused me a cup of tea; but I would have you to ken, Sir Ludovic, though you’re a Sir, and I’m a plain farmer, that the like o’ your servant-women are nae neebors for me.”
“My good woman!”
“I’m nae good woman to be misca’ed by ane of your race! Good woman, quo’ he! as I would say to some gangrel body. You’re sair mistaken, Sir Ludovic, if that’s what you think of the like of me, that has paid you rent, as I was saying, and held up my head with any in the parish, and given my bairns as good an education as you or yours could set your face to. If ye think, after a’ that I’ve put up with, that I’m to take a ‘good woman’ from the laird, as if I wasna to the full as guid a tenant as he is a landlord, or maybe mair to lippen to.”
“Would you have me say ‘ill woman?’”said Sir Ludovic, with momentary peevishness, yet with a gleam of humor. “You are quite right, Mrs. Glen; you are better off, being a tenant, than I am as a landlord. The Leslies never were rich, that I heard tell of; and if we were proud, it never was to our neighbors, the people on our own land.”
“Well, I wouldna say but that’s true,” said Mrs. Glen, softened. “Auld Sir Ludovic, your father, had aye a pleasant word for gentle and simple; and if it was not for that lang-tongued wife down bye yonder—”
Sir Ludovic, though he was a serious man, felt a momentary inclination to chuckle when he heard his sister Jean, the managing person of the family, described as a lang-tongued wife. But he said, gravely,
“In such a question, Mrs. Glen, there is a great deal to be considered. You would not have liked it yourself, had one of your daughters been courted without your knowledge by a penniless lover. When you see your son, if I can do anything for him, if I can advance his interests, let me know, and I will do it. He behaved like a man at the last.”
“Oh ay; when a lad plays into your hands, it’s easy to say that he’s behaving like a man,” she said. But she was mollified by the praise, and her wrath had begun to wear itself out. “I’ll gie you a word o’ warning, Sir Ludovic, though you’ve little title to it from my hands,” she added. “Here’s Randal Burnside coming back. If you’ve saved your little Miss from ae wooer, here’s another; and my word, I would sooner have a bonnie lad like my Rob, with real genius in his head, than a minister’s son, neither ae thing nor another, like Randal Burnside.”
They met a moment afterward, and Randal recounted what had happened; how Rob had caught the train, but he himself, being too late, had intended to return to the Grange for the interval, and was now on his way there. Mrs. Glen, however, would not return; she was too glad to be deposited in a shady room where she could loose her shawl and bonnet-strings, and fan herself with her large handkerchief. Sir Ludovic, who had “a warm heart for Fife,” as he himself expressed it, and who had been touched by Rob’s final self-vindication, did everything that could be done for her comfort, before he turned back with Randal. But they had no sooner left her, than he fell to talking with an appearance of relief.
“Thank God, that’s done with!” he said. “It was very foolish of poor little Margaret; but, after all, it was nothing—nothing in law. My sister Jean got a terrible fright. There is a panic abroad in the world about Scotch marriages; but a promise that is only on one side can never be anything. You don’t seem to know what I am talking of.”
“No,” said Randal, who had gone out of the hall before the climax came. He looked with bewildered curiosity in his companion’s face.
“You should have told me, you should have told me—what did you know about it, then? And what were you doing there, Randal? Excuse me, but I have a right to know.”
“You have a perfect right to know. I knew that Glen had, by some means, engaged—her—to himself,” said Randal, not knowing how to express what he meant, reddening and faltering, as if he himself had been the culprit. “I saw them together twice at Earl’s-hall; and once she was good enough to speak to me about it. I had taken no notice of her when I saw them, thinking, as one does brutally, that she understood what she was doing, as I did. And in her innocence she asked me why? What could I say but that I was a brute, and a fool—and that if I could ever serve her I would do it, should it cost me my life.”
“That is the way you young idiots speak,” said Sir Ludovic, with an impatient gesture. “Your life: how could it affect your life? But you were neither a fool nor brutal, that I can see. Poor little silly thing, she thought you were rude to pass her, did she? and what then? Innocent! oh yes, she’s innocent enough.”
“And then,” said Randal, “she sent to beg me to help her, to keep him away from her. I managed it that time; and this morning she sent to me again. She must have seen her mistake very soon, Sir Ludovic, and what it has cost her. But I hope it is all over now.”
“And you came down here, ane’s errand, as we say in Scotland, for nothing but to relieve her mind? How did you mean to do it? What was the business you were so anxious to tell him about? I thought it was a strange business that you were so anxious to talk over with Rob Glen.”
“It was very simple,” said Randal, coloring high under this examination. “He is a clever fellow; he can write and draw, and has a great deal of talent. I wanted to send him off on a piece of work that had been offered to me—”
“To relieve her?”
“Because I thought he could do it—and for other reasons.”
“I understand.” Sir Ludovic went on in silence for some time while Randal’s heart beat quick in his breast. He had said nothing to betray himself, and yet he felt himself betrayed.
After a while, Sir Ludovic turned and laid his hand kindly, but gravely, on Randal’s shoulder.
“Tell me the simple truth,” he said; “has it ever been breathed between you that you should succeed to the vacant place?”
“Never!” cried Randal, indignantly; “nor is there any vacant place,” he added. “Glen took advantage of a child’s ignorance. She thought him kind to her. She was grateful to him, no more; and he took advantage of it. There is no vacant place.”
“I see,” said Sir Ludovic; then, after a pause: “Randal, you will act a man’s part, and a friend’s, if you will leave her to come to herself, with Jean to look after her. Jean may be ‘a lang-tongued wife,’”he said, not able to repress a smile, “but she’s a good woman in her way. She will take good care of our little sister. What is she but a child still? You will act an honorable part if you leave her to the women: leave her to be quiet and come to herself.”
“I will follow your advice faithfully, as you give it in good faith, Sir Ludovic,” said Randal, “if I can do so; but I warn you frankly that I will never be happy till I have told her what is in my heart.”
“Oh yes, it needs no warlock to see what’s coming,” said Sir Ludovic, shaking his head; “and there’s Jean’s nephew, that young haverel of an Englishman—and probably two or three more, for anything I can tell. But let her alone, let her alone, Randal, I beseech you, till the poor little silly thing comes to herself.”
It would be impossible to describe what hot resentment against such a disparaging title mingled with the softened state of sentiment and amiable friendliness with which Randal felt disposed to regard all the world, and especially this paternal brother, who was so much more like a father. “I will remember what you say, and attend to it—as far as I can,” he said.
“That means, as far as it may happen to suit you, and not a step farther,” said Sir Ludovic, once more shaking his head.
Margaret was not visible when they got to the Grange. She was supposed to be in her own room, and unable to see any one; and, what was more extraordinary, Miss Grace was actually in her own room, and unable to see any one—having wept herself blind, and made her nose scarlet with grief, over the separation of the two lovers, and all the domestic tragedy that had occurred, as Mrs. Bellingham declared, entirely by her fault. If ever there was a woman to whom the separation of true lovers was distressful and terrible, Grace Leslie was that woman; and Jean said it was all her fault! “When I would give my life to make darling Margaret happy!” cried the innocent offender. “They should have my money, every penny; I would not care how I lived, or what I put on, so long as dearest Margaret was happy!” and she had retired speechless and sobbing, feeling the calamity too cruel. As for Mrs. Bellingham, she was in sole possession of the drawing-room, where the gentlemen found her, walking about and fanning herself, bursting with a thousand things to say. The sight of an audience within reach calmed her more than anything else could have done.
“What have you done with that woman, Ludovic?” she said. “She was an impertinent woman; but I’m sorry for her if you walked her all that way to the station as you walked me. Did ever anybody hear such a tongue—and the temper of a demon! But I hope I have some Christian feeling; and after the young man was gone, if you had not been in such a hurry, as sheis a Fife woman, and a tenant, I would have ordered her a cup of tea.”
“I told her so,” said Sir Ludovic; “but she is comfortable enough at the station, and I ordered the people at the inn to send her one.”
“I would have done nothing of the kind,” said Jean; “a randy, nothing but a randy; and just as likely as not to enter into the whole question, and make a talk about the family. And the way news spreads in an English village is just marvellous! Fife is bad enough, but Fife is nothing to it! So you have come back, Randal Burnside—oh yes, you young men are always missing your train. There’s Aubrey would have been here with me and of some use, but that he could not get out of his bed soon enough in the morning. I am very glad Aubrey’s coming; he will be a change from all this. And I never saw a young man with so much tact. Are you going up by the next train, Randal, or are you going to stay? Oh well, if you will not think it uncivil, I am glad for one thing that you’re going; for I came away in such a hurry, and forgot one of the things I wanted most. If you would go to Simpson’s—not Simpson’s, you know, in Sloane Street, nor the one in the Burlington Arcade, but Simpson’s in Wigmore Street, the great shop for artificial flowers—”
“You need not be at so much trouble to conceal our family commotions,” said Sir Ludovic; “Randal knows all about it better than either you or me.”
“Then I would just like to hear what he knows!” said Mrs. Bellingham. “I don’t know anything about it myself, and I don’t think I want to know. Randal, what time is your train? Will you be able to stay till dinner, or can I give you some tea? The tea will be here directly, but dinner may be a little late for Aubrey, who is coming by quite a late afternoon train. He said he had business; but you young men you have always got business. To hear you, one would think you never had a moment. And, Ludovic, just sit down and be quiet, and not fuss about and put me out of my senses. Now I will give you your tea.”
Randal, however, did not stay until it was time for his train. Signs of the past excitement were too strong in the house to make it pleasant to a stranger; and Margaret being absent, he had small interest in the Grange. He took his leave, saying he would take a stroll and look at the grounds—a notion much encouraged by Mrs. Bellingham. “Do that, Randal,” she said; “I wish I were not so tired, I would go with you myself, and let you see everything. And I’ll tell Grace and Margaret you were very sorry not to see them, but time and trains wait for no man. You’ll give my kind regards to your excellent father and mother, and you’ll not forget the wreaths at Simpson’s—plain white for Margaret. No, I’ll not keep you, for my mind is occupied, and I know I’m not an amusing companion. Good-bye; I hope you will come another time, Randal,when we expect you, and when we will be able to show a little attention. Good-bye!”
Randal went away with a smile at the meaning that lay beneath Mrs. Bellingham’s significant words. Should he ever come here as one who was expected, and who had a claim upon the attention she promised him? He looked wistfully up the oak staircase and at the winding passages, by some of which Margaret must have gone. Perhaps she would never know that he had been here. And at the same time, perhaps, it was better that he should not see her. She was rich, while as yet he was not rich, and he had no right to say anything to her; while, perhaps, if they met at this moment of agitation, it might be difficult to refrain from saying something. Thus sadly disappointed, but trying to represent to himself that he was not disappointed, he went through the shrubbery and out into the little park.
How different it was from old Earl’s-hall! Glimpses of the old red house, glowing at every corner in some wealth of blossom, early roses climbing everywhere, wreaths of starry clematis twisted about the walls, and clusters of honeysuckle up to the very eaves, came to him through the trees at every turn he took. So full of color and warmth, and set in the brilliant sunshine of this June day, warm as no midsummer ever attains to be in Fife—the contrast between Margaret’s old home and her new one struck him strangely. The old solemn gray walls, the keener, clearer tones of the landscape, the dark masses of ivy about the half-ruinous tower of Earl’s-hall, came suddenly before his eyes. The scene was grayer and colder, but the central figure had been all life and color there. Here it was the landscape that was warm, in its wealthy background, and she that was pale, in her dress of mourning.
He was thinking this, musing of her and nothing else, when he suddenly saw a shadow glide softly through the trees and stand for a moment upon a little rustic bridge over the small stream which flowed at a distance from the house. He started and hurried that way, striding along over the grass that made his steps noiseless. And, sure enough, it was Margaret. The fresh air was a more familiar restorative than “lying down,” which was Jean’s panacea for agitation as for toothache. She was standing watching the clear running water, wondering at all that had happened—her sob scarcely sobbed out, and apt to come back; her eyes not yet dry, and her lips still parted with that quick breath which told the unstilled beating of her heart. Poor Rob! would he be unhappy? Her heart gave a special ache for him, then quivered with another question: Was Randal angry? Did he think badly of her, that he would not speak?
She looked up hastily, when a step sounded close to her on the path, and that same fluttering heart gave a leap of terror. Then it stilled into sudden relief and repose. “Oh, Randal! you have not gone away!” she cried; and her face, that had been so passive, lighted up.
“I came back,” he said; and the two stood looking at each other for a moment—he on one side of the tinkling water, she on the bridge. “But I am going away,” he added: “Rob has gone.”
“Oh, poor Rob!—he was very kind after all: it was a mistake, only a mistake. It was my fault. I did not like—to hurt his feelings. You should never let any one think a thing is true that is not true, Randal. It is as bad as telling a lie. It is all over now,” she said, looking at him wistfully, with a faint smile.
“And you are glad?” He grudged her moistened eyes and the sob that broke, in spite ofher, into her voice, and the tone with which she said “poor Rob!”
Margaret did not make any reply to this question; she looked at him once more wistfully.
“Were you angry,” she said, “that you would not speak? I should not have troubled you, Randal, but my heart was broken. I was nearly out of my wits with terror. I did not know how to stand out and keep my own part. Were you angry, Randal, that you would not speak?”
“Margaret,” he said, “why should you ask me such questions? I am never angry with you; or, if I am angry, it is for love; because I would do anything you ask me, even against myself.”
Margaret smiled. Her eyes filled with something that was half light and half tears. “And me too!” she said.
Thus, without any grammar, and without any explanation, a great deal was said. Randal went to his train, and Margaret, smiling to herself, went home across the bridge. Both Jean and Grace heard her singing softly as she went up the oak staircase, and could not believe their ears. Grace cried more bitterly still to think that her darling Margaret should show so little feeling, and Jean was dumfounded that she should not be ashamed of herself—a girl just escaped from such a danger, and so nearly mixed up in a horrible story! Sir Ludovic, who had girls of his own, only laughed and shook his head. “She will have seen the right one,” he said, with a gleam of amusement to himself. Perhaps he was all the more indulgent that Aubrey, who was clearly Jean’s candidate, and far too much a man of society for plain Sir Ludovic, arrived with the cream of current scandal, and a most piquant story about Lady Grandton and a certain Duke—“the same man, you know—all come on again, as everybody prophesied,” that very night.
Rob Glen set off within forty-eight hours for the other side of the world, with Jeanie as his wife. He had not much more money than would buy the license that made this possible, and pay his passage, and would have faced the voyage and the New World without either outfit or preparation but for a timely present of a hundred pounds that reached him the night before he sailed. But he never spoke of this even to his wife, though his mother was aware of it, who—though she would not see Jeanie—saw him, and dismissed him with a stormy farewell.
“Sir Ludovic, honest man, might well say it was a heart-break to see your bairn throw himsel’ away—little we kent, him and me, how sooth he was speaking,” Mrs. Glen said. When it was all over, it gave her a little consolation to quote Sir Ludovic, what “he said to me, and I said to him,” when she met him “in the South.”
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that it was a great shock to Margaret to hear what had happened, and how soon and how completely the baffled suitor had consoled himself. “All the time it was Jeanie’s Rob,” she said to herself, with a scorching blush; and for the moment felt as deeply shamed and humbled as Rob himself had been by her indifference. And when Jean heard of these two or three words with Randal, which, indeed, as Mrs. Bellingham said indignantly, “settled nothing—for after an affair of that kind what is to hinder her having a dozen?” she was very angry, and planted thorns in Margaret’s pillow. But Jean will not be supreme forever over her little sister’s life.
THE END.