“Oh, Rob!” she cried, turning to him, putting out her hands.
Sir Ludovic sprang forward and took both these hands into his.
“Margaret, do you want to marry him?” he cried.
“Oh no, no, no; but anything else!” the girl said. “It was never he that did that. He was always kind—kinder than anybody in the world: I am his friend! Let me go, Ludovic! Rob,” she said, going up to him, giving him her hand, the tears dropping from her eyes, “not that; but I am your friend; I will always be your friend, whatever may happen, wherever we may be. I will never forget you, Rob. Good-bye! You are kind again, you are like yourself; you are my old Rob that always was my friend.”
Rob took her hands into his. He stooped over her and kissed her on the forehead: he would not give in without a demonstration of his power. Then he flung her hands away from him almost with violence, and turned to the door.
“It seems my fate never to be able to do what is best for myself,” he said, looking back with a wave of his hand and an irrepressible burst of self-assertion, as he turned and disappeared among the flowering bushes outside the open door.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Rob issued forth out of the Grange discomfited and beaten, but without the sense of moral downfall which had been bowing him to the ground. His heart was melted, his spirit softened. He was defeated, but he was not humiliated. He had come off with all the honors of war—not an insulted coward, but a magnanimous hero. “All is lost but honor,” he said to himself, with an expansion of his breast. His eyes were still wet with the dew of generous feeling: he had not been forced into renunciation; he had himself evacuated the untenable position. There was a little braggadocio in this self-consciousness—a little even of what in school-boy English is called swagger; but still he had a certain right to his swagger. He had taken the only possible way of coming out with honor from the dilemma in which he had placed himself. He said to himself that it was a great sacrifice he had made. All the hopes upon which he had dwelt so long and fondly were gone; he was all at sea again for his future, and did not know what to do. What was he to do? He could not return to the aimless life he had pursued in his mother’s house; and by this time he had found out that it was by no means so easy as he had supposed to get fortune and reputation in London. What should he do? He could hope nothing from his mother. He knew well with what reproaches she would overwhelm him, what taunts she would have in her power. He must do something to secure himself independence, though for so long he had hoped that independence was coming to him in the easiest way—a rich wife—not only rich, but fair—the “position of a gentleman,” most dearly cherished of all the gifts of fortune—a handsome house, leisure and happiness, and everything that heart of man could desire. The breaking up of this dream called forth a sigh when the first elation of his victory over himself was over, and then he began to droop as he walked on. No elevation in the social scale was likely to come now. Rob Glen, the son of a small farmer, he was, and would remain; not the happy hero of a romance, not the great artist undeveloped, not the genius he had thought. Thus the brag and the swagger gradually melted away; the sense of moral satisfaction ceased to give him as much support as at first—even the generous sentiment sank into a sense of failure. What was to become of him? He walked on, dull but dogged, going steadily forward, but scarcely knowing where he was going; and thus came upon Randal Burnside walking along the same road before him, more anxious and excited, and not much less discouraged and melancholy than he.
Randal’s face brightened slightly at the sight of him.
“You have come, after all, Glen,” he said; “I had almost given you up.”