Florimel drew herself up, and would have looked him to ashes if wrath could burn. Malcolm saw he must come to the point at once or the parley would cease.
“My lady,” he said, “your father was my father too. I am a son of the Marquis of Lossie, and your brother—your ladyship’s half-brother, that is.”
She looked a little stunned. The gleam died out of her eyes, and the glow out of her cheek. She turned and leaned over the bulwark. He said no more, but stood watching her. She raised herself suddenly, looked at him, and said,
“Do I understand you?”
“I am your brother,” Malcolm repeated.
She made a step forward, and held out her hand. He took the little thing in his great grasp tenderly. Her lip trembled. She gazed at him for an instant, full in the face, with a womanly, believing expression.
“My poor Malcolm!” she said, “I am sorry for you.”
She withdrew her hand, and again leaned over the bulwark. Her heart was softened towards her groom-brother, and for a moment it seemed to her that some wrong had been done. Why should the one be a marchioness and the other a groom? Then came the thought that now all was explained. Every peculiarity of the young man, every gift extraordinary of body, mind, or spirit, his strength, his beauty, his courage, and honesty, his simplicity, nobleness, and affection, yes, even what in him was mere doggedness and presumption, all, everything explained itself to Florimel in the fact that the incomprehensible fisherman-groom, that talked like a parson, was the son of her father. She never thought of the woman that was his mother, and what share she might happen to have in the phenomenon —thought only of her father, and a little pitifully of the half-honour and more than half-disgrace infolding the very existence of her attendant. As usual her thoughts were confused. The one moment the poor fellow seemed to exist only on sufferance, having no right to be there at all, for as fine a fellow as he was; the next she thought how immeasurably he was indebted to the family of the Colonsays. Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption in assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship— absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury at once got the upper hand. Was she to be dictated to by a low-born, low-bred fellow like that—a fellow whose hands were harder than any leather, not with doing things for his amusement but actually with earning his daily bread—one that used to smell so of fish —on the ground of right too—and such a right as ought to exclude him for ever from her presence!—She turned to him again.
“How long have you known this—this—painful—indeed I must confess to finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I presume you do know it?” she said, coldly and searchingly.
“My father confessed it on his death-bed.”