The blood rushed to Randal’s face in the darkness. He felt the veins fill and throb upon his forehead, and fury took possession of his heart. He could have seized the fellow by the throat who thus wantonly and without necessity had introduced Margaret’s name. But then—who could tell?—this office of mutual friend might be the very thing she had intended him to take.
“I cannot see what use I could be—”
“You could be of the greatest use. You could find out for me, without suspicion, a hundred things I want to know; or, if you fell under the suspicion of being after Margaret yourself,” said Rob, with the unconscious vulgarity which he had never been able to get over, “there would be no harm done. They would not turn you to the door for it. You see our correspondence has to be of a very limited character till she is of age.”
“Do you think,” said Randal, hotly, “that to carry on such a correspondence at all is right or honorable without the sanction of the friends? No creature so young” (he kept to words as impersonal as possible, not feeling able to use a pronoun to indicate Margaret, whose sacred name ought never to have been breathed) “can understand what such a correspondence is. Glen, since you ask me, as a man of honor you ought not to do it. I am sure you ought not to do it.”
“It is all very well talking,” said Rob, “but what am I to do? Lose sight of her altogether—for three long years?”
“Is that the time fixed?” said Randal, with dismay.
“When she comes of age. Then, whatever happens, I have sufficient faith that all will go merry as a marriage-bell. But in the mean time—” Rob said, half-bragging, half-mournfully: he was in reality in the lowest depths of discouragement; but the last person to whom he would have confided this was Randal Burnside.
Randal was struck with a sudden thought. “Look here,” he said, somewhat hoarsely, “I have given you my opinion, which I have no right to do; but you may make some use of me in return, if you like. Look here, Glen; I’ll get you something to do in my uncle’s office in Edinburgh, which will be better than hanging on here, if you’ll have patience and wait till the time you mention, and take my advice.”
Was this what she wanted him to do? The effort was a great one; for Randal felt a loathing grow over him for the under-bred fellow to whom such celestial good-fortune and unexampled happiness had fallen. To annoy and harass himself with the constant sight of him in order to leave her free and unmolested, it was a sacrifice of which Margaret would never know the full difficulty. Was this what she wanted him to do?