“This house is yours, Kate. I will never consent to regard it otherwise. You would not have me dishonour my father’s name, and take back what he had given?”
“It is too late in the night to open a knotty discussion. Say good-by, and come back here to breakfast,” said she, gaily; “and remember to make your appearance in becoming guise, for I mean to present the lieges to their master.”
“I wish you would not send me away so soon; I have many things to ask you.”
“And is there not all to-morrow before you? I am going to see Inchegora after breakfast; a very important mission, touching a limekiln in dispute there. You shall sit on the bench with me, and aid justice by your counsels.”
“Can you not give, all to-morrow to me, and leave these cares for another time?”
“No, Sir. ‘We belong to our people,’ as Elizabeth said. Good night—good night.”
With a most reluctant heart he answered, “Good night,” and pressing her hand with a cordial grasp, he kissed it twice, and turned away.
Sleep was out of the question—his mind was too full of all he had heard to admit of slumber—and so he strolled down to the shore, losing himself amongst the wild, fantastic rocks, or catching glimpses of the old Abbey at times between their spiked and craggy outlines.
“What a creature, in what a place!” muttered he. “Such beauty, such grace, such fascination, in the midst of all this rugged barbarism!” And what a terrible story was that she told him: the long struggle she had endured, the defeat, and then, the victory—the victory over herself at last, for at last she saw and owned how ignoble was the prize for which she had perilled her very existence. “What a noble nature it most be, too,” thought he, “that could deal so candidly with its own short-comings, for, as she said truly, ‘I could have made out a case for myself, if I would.’ But she would not stoop to that—her proud heart could not brook the falsehood—and oh, how I love her for it! How beautiful she looked, too, throughout it all; I cannot say whether more beautiful in her moments of self-accusing sorrow, or in the haughty assertion of her own dignity.”
One thing puzzled him, she had not dropped one word as to the future. The half-jesting allusion to himself as the Lord of Arran dimly shadowed forth that resolve of which Cane had told him.