“Are you sure that this is what you mean, Tom? There is no woman in England who would not be proud of the honour which you are refusing to accept,” he said.
“I know that, father, quite well. Indeed, the honour lies upon me, and afflicts me night and morn—the burden of this honour unto which I was not born.”
“Do not be flippant, my dear; this certainly should be considered gravely.”
“Father, don’t you know that I am really grave enough even to satisfy you? I am not doing this thing hastily. Nothing would induce me to marry Mr. Macdonald—because I do not care for him, and never could. I respect him with all my heart, so, you see, there is no room left for love. Read this letter, please, and see if it will do.”
Mr. Whitwell drew his daughter to his side, and looked at her with the anxiety of tenderness. Sometimes he had thought that Tom was not quite her own merry self, and that there must be a reason for the change. He told her so; and that little sentence spoken by her father was the most powerful tonic she could have had. Tom became from that day as mischievous and merry as ever.
If Mr. Macdonald received her letter with great disappointment no one ever knew it. He read it as final; and, after replying to it in a kindly letter, which Tom kept as one of her treasures, he dismissed the thought of marriage from his mind, and threw himself unreservedly into his work.
As Arthur Knight was doing also.
Mary Wythburn had shared with several other persons the belief that Tom cared for her cousin, John Dallington, with a regard that was more than cousinly, and she had imparted this belief to Mr. Knight in all good faith.
“But he is engaged,” he had objected.
“Yes,” said Mary; “but it is doubtful if he and Margaret Miller are ever married, for the opposition of his mother is very strong, and Margaret’s life is full of other and larger interests. Mr. Dallington will be faithful to her if she will let him be; but if she should really break off the engagement I should expect to see him and Tom married speedily.”