“It was not about business. It was about you.”
“Me!”
“My dear Mary, for what I am going to say, I beg your pardon in advance, for I feel keenly the position in which I must appear before you. You know that the welfare of Drumloch has been my father’s object by day, and his dream by night. He cannot bear to think of a stranger or a strange name in its old rooms. Long ago, when we were little children, our marriage was planned, and when the place was clear, and you had grown to a beautiful womanhood, and I had completed my education, father longed to see us in Drumloch. There were points we could not agree upon. He was angry, I was obstinate—Mary, I know not how to tell you; how to ask you—”
“Allan, my dear brother Allan, spare yourself and me any more words.” She looked up with clear, candid eyes, and laid her hand upon his. “Uncle is not unjust in his expectations. His outlay, his cares, his labor, have saved Drumloch to the family. It is as much his purchase as if he had bought every acre at public roup. And he has been a second father to me; kind, generous, thoughtful. It is hard enough for him that his plans must fail; it would be cruel indeed if he were parted from a son he loves so tenderly as he loves you, Allan. Let me bear the blame. Let it be my fault his hopes cannot be realized.”
“Can they not be realized, Mary?”
“Do you mean by that question to offer me your hand, Allan? At any rate I will consider it a fulfillment of your father’s desire. No, they cannot be realized. You are to me as a brother. I distinctly refuse to accept you as a husband. Uncle John is a gentleman; he will consider my ‘no’ as final; and he is too just to blame you, because I decline to be your wife. Nor shall we be any worse friends, Allan, for this honest talk, I am sure of that.” She smiled bravely in his face, and he did not suspect how deeply both her affections and her pride had been wounded.
“Let us go back to the house; the air is heavy and hot, we may have a storm.”
Allan was thoroughly miserable and unsettled. As soon as Mary had so positively refused him, he began to have doubts and longings. “Drumloch was a fine estate—the name was old and honorable, and in a fair way for greater honors—Mary was sweet and sensible, and a woman to be desired above all other women—except Maggie. Yet, after all, was he not paying a great price for his pearl?” Mary and Maggie were both difficult to resign. He began to grumble at events and to blame every one but himself. “If his father had not been so unreasonable, he never would have gone to Edinburgh at the time he did—never would have gone to Pittenloch—never would have met Maggie Promoter.”
John Campbell came home in unusually high spirits. He had made a profitable contract, and he had done a kindness to an old friend. Both circumstances had been mental tonics to him. He felt himself a happy man. The atmosphere of the dinner table chilled him a little, but for once the subject on which he was always hoping and fearing did not enter his mind. When Mary left the room, he said cheerfully, “We will be with you anon, dearie, and then you shall sing for us, ‘The Lass O’ Gowrie,’” and he began to hum the pretty melody as he poured out for himself another glass of port. “Help yourself, Allan. You do not seem very bright to-night.”
“I do not feel very bright. Mary told me positively this morning that she would not marry me.”