Mrs. Dorriman wrote to her brother, and, in a few words which she found difficult to write, told him of her engagement.
She also said that she trusted Margaret would fill her place and live with him. "I think Margaret will be more to you than I could ever be." She wound up by saying, "You have been kind, but I have always felt that you were disappointed in me. I am not strong-minded enough to be a good companion for one so accustomed to more intelligence."
Had she deliberately steeped her pen in gall she could not have given him a bitterer moment.
He was physically unfit for any excitement or worry. His illness had gained rapidly upon him, and he suffered terribly at times.
He received a letter from Margaret which also troubled him greatly.
Knowing him to be well off, and that he did not care about money for its own sake, she wrote with confidence to him about Grace.
"She has given up the money left to her after me which I refused to take. I am afraid that giving it up will embarrass her and Paul. You have often offered to settle money upon me—to give me much that I did not want—will you do something for my sister? will you arrange something to make up to her for what she has given up? I think you feel with me, that accepting that money would humiliate me whether it was accepted by Grace or by myself."
A few days and then came the answer.
"Dear Margaret,
"I have nothing to give. I have no right to give anything, and I have not got it in my power. I am ill, and I am miserable. When I can I am going to Inchbrae. I have something to say to my sister. I think your ideas about that overstrained."
To say Margaret was disappointed is to say little. She doubted now whether the stand she had taken was the right one. All at once she seemed to see everything differently; for a moment or two she felt as though her sensitiveness on this subject had led Grace to disaster.