He looked at her so that she could not bear his eyes. It was a curious kind of love-tale; but not, I suppose, less embarrassing than another. She withdrew her hand from his arm with difficulty, and with a little impatience. “Mr. Fanshawe, you vex me when you say such things—of yourself.”
Each word as she said it was lower than the preceding one; and the last two were quite inaudible to poor Fanshawe. He gave a huge sigh that came from the bottom of his heart. “Well!” he said, “I knew how it would be; I felt sure that was about what you would say. And it is quite right—I am not good enough to look at you, much less to hope. But, Miss Heriot, I am done for now, and I don’t care what becomes of me. Don’t be kind to me any more.”
Marjory looked up, and saw, to her wonder, the darkness that had come over his face. There was no time to be lost in trifling. She put her hand within his arm again—she looked at him smiling. “But I will,” she said.
“You will—what?”
The question was foolish—the answer unnecessary. So are many questions, and many answers at that crisis of life. They got home somehow, and told the others what had happened. “But I have nothing,” Fanshawe said ruefully when he recounted the matter to Mr. Charles.
“We must make some arrangement—some arrangement,” said that troubled sage, with many puckers in his forehead. Anyhow, it was a way of solving the question of Marjory’s marriage, and that was worth a sacrifice.
The Fanshawes are now settled at Pitcomlie, the guardians of the baby heir. The useless man has become the most useful of men in that work which so many useless men could shine in, the management of an estate. He has found what he can do, and does it. And Mr. Charles sits in his room in the old Tower, and has come to the second volume of the family history. It will be a long time before he comes to the entry of “Thomas Heriot, married June 16, 18—, to Isabell Jeffrey,” nobody’s daughter, which it goes to his very heart to think of. Perhaps he will not live long enough to be obliged to record that there was once an irregular marriage and a nameless wife among the Heriots; but in the meantime the others keep the name of poor Isabell always sacred; and her boy, after his long minority, will be the richest Heriot that has reigned for many a generation in the East Neuk of Fife.
THE END.
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