“Mr. Grant again!—Well!”
“Well!—we shall see!”
And they soon did. For that same evening Donal called, and asked to see Miss Graeme.
“I am sorry my brother is gone down to the town,” she said.
“It was you I wanted to see,” he answered. “I wish to speak openly to you, for I imagine you will understand me better than your brother. Perhaps I ought rather to say—I shall be better able to explain myself to you.”
There was that in his countenance which seemed to seize and hold her—a calm exaltation, as of a man who had outlived weakness and was facing the eternal. The spirit of a smile hovered about his mouth and eyes, embodying itself now and then in a grave, sweet, satisfied smile: the man seemed full of content, not with himself, but with something he would gladly share.
“I have been talking with your brother,” he said, after a brief pause.
“I know,” she answered. “I am afraid he did not meet you as he ought. He is a good and honourable man; but like most men he needs a moment to pull himself together. Few men, Mr. Grant, when suddenly called upon, answer from the best that is in them.”
“The fact is simply this,” resumed Donal: “I do not want the Morven property. I thank God for lady Arctura: what was hers I do not desire.”
“But may it not be your duty to take it, Mr. Grant?—Pardon me for suggesting duty to one who always acts from it.”