"To please me, dear, you will take it, won't you? I have so much money I do not know how to spend it. You will not feel insulted and refuse my gift, will you?" Blondine argues in her coaxing tones.
So the gift was accepted. Sister Jean is very happy, everyone is so good to her—to her, a poor charity sister. But as far as being intimately connected for the future with the convent, they will lose one of their most staunch and zealous workers. For Lord Streathmere had very humbly and in great trepidation, asked Sister Jean to marry him.
It all seemed very impossible, but true, nevertheless, and Sister Jean? well, she was so grateful to him, and then another thing, she had learned to be very fond of impetuous, handsome Lord Streathmere. So as there was no need for delay, one pleasant sunny morning in May, pretty Jantie Mackeith became Lady Streathmere. And Burpee's meaning was very tender as well as sincere, when he whispered in Jantie's dainty ear:
"Huntingtower is mine lassie,
Huntingtower is mine Jeanie;
Huntingtower an' a' Blairgower,
And a' that's mine is thine lassie."
No one among all the throng of invited fashionables knew the bride's origin. All they knew was that it was a purely love match, very unusual in those all-for-money-days. But the poor, sick and suffering, of the convent of St. Marguerite are losing a gentle, sympathetic friend. An anonymous gift of several hundred dollars, was received by the new Mother Superior, which went to show Jantie's influence had already begun. Lord Streathmere's mother was not present at the marriage; she was in the south of France, and she dared not risk her health in our clear, cold Canadian winter. The happy couple went away immediately on an extended European tour.
"I am off to-morrow, my dear, for far off Scotish home; will you not say farewell, Miss Litchfield?"
The sun is streaming in, in all its full, glorious tints through the stained glass windows of the pretty sitting room, and falls and lingers lovingly on Dolores' head, bent over the table writing. She starts as Sir Barry speaks.
"To-morrow," she repeats, gazing at him as if his words were some foreign tongue, to her meaningless. She loves this man standing there, but her proud heart is too lofty to let such a feeling be fancied, let alone proved. And so she hides her feelings behind an icy exterior. And Sir Barry has given Dolores, his own Dolores—as he calls her passionately to himself—up almost in despair.
"Yes, it is a long time now since I have seen the dear old place, and I dare say they are requiring my presence there. I have done all I can do here, there is no need for my remaining longer, there will be no one to be sorry I am gone. Good bye, Miss Litchfield, I am sorry I have always seemed to displease you, very sorry, but when I am gone, then perhaps you may sometimes think of me kindly in my far off lonely home."
Sir Barry's voice breaks in a highly suspicious way. He is holding his hand out to Dolores; but Dolores' eyes are full of tears, she cannot see the outstretched hand. What makes her sit there, feeling so silly? What will Sir Barry think of her? She tries to throw off the strange feeling that is stealing over her senses, but Sir Barry's words were so pathetic they struck direct to Dolores' rebellious, loving heart. She drops her head on the table and weeps.