'If I wrong you I regret it,' said Lady Fettercairn; 'so here, for a time, let this unpleasant matter end.'
And, with a slight bow, she sailed away into the conservatory.
But Dulcie felt that there the matter could not and should not end, and she began to think seriously of flying from Craigengowan.
With a little stifled cry that broke from her quivering lips, Dulcie rushed down the steps of the terrace and fled through the shrubberies like a hunted animal, looking neither to the right nor left, till she reached the sequestered spot where stood Queen Mary's Thorn, and, flinging herself face downwards in the grass, she uttered again and again her father's name, as if she would summon him to her protection and aid, amid a flood of passionate tears—tears from the depths of her despair and intense humiliation.
Unmindful of the flight of time, or whether she was wanted for attendance on Lady Fettercairn or Snap, she lay there a whole hour, while the shadows of tree and shrub were lengthening round her. She thought her heart was breaking, so keen was her sense of the affronts to which she had been subjected; for, with all her sweet humility, Dulcie was not without innate dignity and pride; and in this mournful condition she was found by Finella, who, suspecting from her grandmother's bearing and aspect that something was wrong, had kindly gone in search of her.
She raised her up, caressed and kissed her, and then heard her story with no small indignation, though she knew not what to do in the situation.
'I shall never, never forget you, Finella,' sobbed Dulcie; 'but when I leave this I know not what will become of me.'
'Leave this—why?'
'Would you have me stay after what I have told you, and to be treated as I am by Lady Fettercairn? But now, to me, it seems that the future of my life will be gloomy, indeed, and full of torture and sorrow.'
'Don't talk thus, Dulcie; if ever a girl was made for happiness and to give it to others it is you, my plump little English pet!' said Finella, taking Dulcie's tear-stained face between her pretty hands, and kissing it on both cheeks.