Just half-a-dozen lines, my dear mother, for your eye alone: I enclose them in my ordinary letter, meant for the world in general as well as you. Mr. McAlpin knows all; but he was still anxious to make her his wife. He thinks her the best and truest girl, excellent among women. Praise from him is praise. It was, I am certain, a most affecting interview; but they were alone. Mary’s refusal—an absolute one—was dictated by two motives. The one is that the old feelings hold still so much sway in her heart (and, she says, always will) as to render the idea of a union with any one else absolutely distasteful. The other motive was consideration for Andrew McAlpin. “I put it to you what it would be,” she said to him, “if at any time after our marriage, whether following closely upon it, or in years to come, this story of mine should transpire? I should die with shame, with grief for your sake: and there could be no remedy. No, no; never will I subject you, or any one else, to that frightful chance.”
And, mother, she is right. In spite of Mr. McAlpin’s present disappointment, I know he thinks her so. It has but increased his admiration for her. He said to me, “Henceforth I shall look upon her as a dear younger sister, and give her still my heart’s best love and reverence.”
And this is the private history of the affair: I thought I ought to disclose it to you. Richard, while thinking she has done right, says it is altogether an awful pity (he means inclusive of the past), for she’s a trump of a girl. And so she is.
Ever yours, dear mother,
Susan Layne.
Part the Third.
It was a lovely place, that homestead of Chavasse Grange, as seen in the freshness of the summer’s morning: and my Lady Chavasse, looking from her window as she dressed, might be thinking so. The green lawn, its dew-drops sparkling in the sun, was dotted with beds of many coloured flowers; the thrush and blackbird were singing in the surrounding trees; the far-off landscape, stretched around in the distance, was beautiful for the eye to rest upon.
Nearly hidden by great clusters of roses, some of which he was plucking, and talking at the same time to the head-gardener who stood by, was a good-looking gentleman of some five-and-twenty years. His light morning coat was flung back from the snowy white waistcoat, across which a gold chain passed, its seal drooping; a blue necktie, just as blue as his blue eyes, was carelessly tied round his neck. He might have been known for a Chavasse by those self-same eyes, for they had been his father’s—Sir Peter’s—before him.
“About those geraniums that you have put out, Markham,” he was saying. “How came you to do it? Lady Chavasse is very angry; she wanted them kept in the pots.”
“Well, Sir Geoffry, I only obeyed orders,” replied the gardener—who was new to the place. “Lady Rachel told me to do it.”