ROB ISSUED 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 relieve her of 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 she is 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 of her, 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