The temptation to do so was strong—the crave to be at home again, to see the faces of old friends, the dear familiar hills, the silver birks, and the fast-flowing May. But though understanding each other fully as the cousins did now, and though their positions as such were changed and strengthened, Mary in her independence of spirit and character thought she would prefer to struggle on as they were, till he could take her there as his wife.
For her kindness to the sisters, Colville slipped quietly into Mrs. Fubsby's hand a cheque for an ample sum, saying, after he had heard her story, that it would help her in her plans to prove herself Lady Sleath and punish her wrong-doer.
This was on the following day, when Mary told him the simple story of all their recent troubles, while he gazed down upon her with eyes full of truth and tenderness, and her heart was beating tumultuously with its new-found joy. She knew that he loved her now, he whom she felt inclined to adore.
Yet the future seemed to loom darkly before her. There was this terrible campaign in Afghanistan, with its certain and far separation, its remote and fearful contingencies to be faced, endured, and undergone; so Fate seemed still to be cruel to her.
When, in broken accents and with mingled emotions of anger and shame, while her head reclined upon his breast, Mary told Colville of Sir Redmond Sleath's systematic attempts, though secretly married, to lure away her unsuspecting sister Ellinor, great was the wrath and fury of her lover.
Whip in hand, he would assuredly have taken condign vengeance on the back and limbs of the parvenu baronet, but that the latter had to quit London—even England—just about that time, in some haste and in dire disgrace.
At his club he had gambled deeply with Lord Dunkeld and others, from whom he had won great sums of money—more than the peer especially could well afford—and before it was discovered that his wonderful success was due to the use of marked cards.
During a game of quinze one of the players—a brother-Guardsman of Colville's—noticed that several of the cards were in some way indicated, and, after a careful examination, it was found that all the fives and the court cards were marked by the prick of a needle at the corners, and some in the centre, too.
These marks, though almost invisible to the eye, were recognisable by the sense of touch. A storm of indignation burst over Sleath. He was flung down the club stairs, had to eat very 'humble pie' indeed, and was now gone to the Continent, none knew or cared precisely where, with a congenial friend, Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap (of whom more anon); so whatever legal plans Mrs. Fubsby meant to adopt to relinquish her maiden name and insist upon the adoption of that of Lady Sleath, were partially frustrated or delayed for a time by the baronet's disappearance.
On the very day after the engagement, Mary and Ellinor bade her farewell—it could scarcely be said with regret, though the good woman shed abundance of tears on the occasion.