Dr. Macrae bowed, but made no answer, and Mrs. Caird, who knew every phase and mood of the man's temper, was quite sure that no words could have translated that silence. It was like a black frost. For he had in his breast pocket a letter from Lady Cramer, received an hour previously, in which she described herself as really ill with longing for him, having no heart for the follies and gaieties of Paris and seldom going out. Further, she declared that nothing but the wretched climate of Scotland kept her from flying back to Cramer and to him; but her cough troubled her in damp weather, and she felt herself frail, and wished to get well and strong for his sake.
"And I have been believing and pitying this lying woman!" he said in an awful whisper, as he took the false message from his breast, and with a silent rage savagely placed his foot upon it. "I will never write another word to this shameless creature! I will never speak to her again! If she sought her pardon at my feet, I would spurn her from me," and to such passionate evil promises he trod the lying letter under his foot. Then he sat down, erect and motionless, with eyes fixed and arms folded across his breast. For, though trouble with the majority runs into motion, with Dr. Macrae it gathered itself together, and in a still, dumb intentness thought out how best to suffer or to do.
Fortunately Richard had so much to say to Marion that his breakfast occupied him nearly a couple of hours, and by that time Dr. Macrae had decided on his course. He was now more than ever determined to prevent his daughter's marriage to Lord Cramer. How could he permit her to come under the influence of a woman so wicked as Lady Cramer? She would either alienate his daughter from him or she would alienate her husband, and make his child a wronged and miserable wife. To prevent this marriage had suddenly become the most imperative duty of his life.
Really, from Dr. Macrae's point of view, there was nothing favorable for Marion in it. He held his uncle's ideas with regard to the superior nobility of the Macraes; he did not like Lord Cramer personally, and he believed him to be much poorer than he really was. With the pertinacity of his race he still clung to the Reid alliance. He told himself that circumstances have a kind of omnipotence, and that any day they might alter affairs so radically that Marion might come to see things as he did. "If Cramer would only go to the other side of the earth," he whispered, "it would leave a vacuum in Marion's life. Nature abhors a vacuum; she would hasten to fill it, and there is the possibility—yes, the likelihood—that Allan might slip into that other man's place, or the other man might be killed—or he might see someone he liked better than Marion—if Richard Cramer would only go away—if he would only go forever—yes, forever! It is no sin to wish a bad man to his deserts."
At this reflection Richard Cramer entered the room, and the first words he uttered seemed to promise a realization of Dr. Macrae's desire.
"Well, sir," he said, as he took the chair Dr. Macrae indicated, "well, sir, I am going with the Enniskillen Dragoons to India next week, but our route is far north, and so we shall doubtless escape the cholera."
"But not the warlike native tribes?"
"We are going to turn them into peaceable tribes."
"Not an easy task."
"It will be done."