"I believe you, or rather I believe you think so."
A kind impulse, a rare one, moved the old man. Perhaps he reflected that these two young people might, have defied him and married without his consent had they pleased to do so; but they had submitted themselves to his will, and as his favorite motto told him that "Government is maintained by reward and punishment," he may have reasoned that this was an occasion for reward. So he said to the young man, who had risen, and was standing before him:
"Rothsay, we shall leave here for New York on Tuesday, to sail by the Saturday's steamer for Liverpool. If your engagements admit of it, and if you would like to spend the intervening time near Cora, we should be pleased to have you stay here."
Rule spent three happy days at Rockhold, and in the evening of the third day, the evening before they were to leave for Europe, he asked Mr. Rockharrt if he might have the privilege of attending the travelers to the seaport, and seeing them off by the steamer.
The Iron King found no objection to this plan. Mrs. Rockharrt was pleased, and Cora was delighted with it.
Accordingly, on the next morning, they left Rockhold for New York, where they arrived on the evening of the next day.
And on Saturday morning they went on board the steamer Persia, bound for Liverpool.
They bade good-by to Regulas Rothsay, on the deck, at the last moment.
The signal gun was fired, and our party sailed away to a new life, in which the faith of a woman was to be tempted and lost, and the career of a man was to be wrecked.
It was in the third year of their absence that they returned from the Continent to England. They reached London in February, in time to see the grand pageant of the queen opening parliament. After which they attended the first royal drawing room of the season, on which occasion Mrs. Rockharrt and Miss Haught were presented to her Majesty by the wife of the American minister.