'How dare you ask me to be patient, under such insult and wrong? Go, sir—I hate you—I never loved you—I leave you to this Fanny, whom we saw in her fitting place, among the domestics, on the night of the assembly—this matron of the period, whom I saw entering the castle, doubtless, to visit you—the Fanny with whom you have secret meetings and a secret correspondence—begone to her, and cross my path no more!'
And sweeping from the room like a tragedy queen, she left him.
'Did she but know who that woman is, would she speak of her thus?' said Leslie Fotheringhame, almost aloud, as he quitted the house with an emotion of deep distress, not unmixed with shame and anger.
He made two or three attempts to alter the decision that Annabelle Erroll had come to, of casting him off for ever. He called twice at the house of Sir Piers, but on both occasions was told that she was from home, and Mr. Tunley added, was preparing to leave town. He wrote her a tender and most passionate letter which might—nay, surely would—have explained all; but it was returned to him unopened; and heaven only knew the bitter ache it cost the heart of Annabelle to act thus firmly and decidedly, for, sooth to say, the love of Leslie Fotheringhame had become, as it were, a part of her own existence, interwoven with her daily life.
She knew that their engagement had become known to many, and the inevitable exposé and gossip that must follow its sudden ending, exasperated her justly; and thus pride struggled with grief for mastery in her heart, as she brought her visit to the Montgomeries to a close, and departed for her own home.
From casual remarks, Mary could learn that none among the Cameronians had ever heard aught of Cecil since the night of his disappearance. The poor fellow had passed out of their ken completely. Mary's grief was all the deeper because it was secret, and as time passed, the grass seemed to be growing over the grave of all her hopes.
When Fotheringhame left the regiment on leave, she ceased to have expectation of ever hearing of Cecil in any way, even through Freeport or others; and it gave her much of a shock to learn that the mysterious lady—she of the golden hazel eyes—had left Edinburgh too—at least, so Hew gleefully informed her.
And now Mary—though she omitted all mention of this circumstance in her many letters to Annabelle—knew not what to think of Leslie Fotheringhame, save, perhaps, the worst!
She was sick of Edinburgh and its new associations—the ruin of Falconer and the too apparent perfidy of his friend; but she regarded with equal dread and disgust a return to the general seclusion of Eaglescraig, and the persecution of Sir Piers and of Hew Montgomerie, and bitterly in her heart did she inveigh against the absurdity of her father's will.