"It is no bad news," said Mrs. Dorriman, her nervousness betraying itself in her voice; "but there is no one here I can go to about anything—and I want to ask your advice about something."
Mr. Macfarlane knew the world, and he knew also a good deal more about Mrs. Dorriman's position than she did herself. But he was a man who made it a rule never to interfere in any one's business, having enough of his own on his hands. Any one looking at him and having a knowledge of countenances would have seen at once that caution predominated over all other impulses. His expression was an absolute blank just now, and Mrs. Dorriman, who had instinctively turned to him in appeal, shrank a little, and he saw it.
"I am not a man fond of interfering," he said, gravely; "but I hope I can see when I can do a kindness, and do it—always supposing that in doing it I do no one any wrong."
"I want your advice," Mrs. Dorriman said, nervously. In asking advice was she doing her brother any wrong?
"And upon what subject?" Mr. Macfarlane took out his watch, counted the seconds with his thumb and returned it to his pocket. Urged by this evidence of time being precious, poor Mrs. Dorriman, without any of those explanations which she had turned over in her mind as necessary to lead up to the subject, rushed into it at once. "My brother, Mr. Sandford, wishes me to live with him——"
"To live with him?" Mr. Macfarlane was a little surprised, but he knew also that this could not be all. "I suppose he is anxious to have more of a home than a bachelor has as a rule," he said, after a pause.
"He wishes me to give up Inchbrae."
"Give it up! You do not mean to sell it out and out?"
"Yes, he desires me to sell it," and Mrs. Dorriman's voice showed plainly what selling it meant to her, and what a pang it would give her.
Mr. Macfarlane was a little puzzled now. Though he knew a good deal of her history, he was not at all sure what the relations between brother and sister were, that is to say, he knew a great deal, but not everything, and he was afraid of making a false move from ignorance, and putting this poor lady into a worse position than she at present was in.