“Ah, but he offered you his hand?”
“Yes, sir, and I refused.”
Again there was a pause.
“You do not like my son Neil?”
“Like him, sir!” she cried, with her face flushing; “I think him the truest, noblest gentleman I ever met.”
“Ah! And yet, feeling like that, you refused him?”
“Yes, sir, it is impossible.”
Ralph Elthorne lay watching her, and she met his searching gaze without blanching, her soft grey eyes slightly clouded by the tears which rose and gathered till they brimmed over and one great drop slowly trickled down her cheek.
“And my son Alison?—he was attracted by you too. What of him?”
“Mr Alison Elthorne has followed me from the day I came, sir, and proffered his love.”