She shook her head.
"I prefer my own company—when I cannot have yours."
A wave of bitterness, of humiliation swept over him in the knowledge that he could not ask one of his own sisters to help her. Truly he dwelt in an unlovely world.
He glanced at Nan again, and suddenly there came over him a great yearning to share her lot, even at the price of sharing her shame. He was not ashamed of her, and she knew it; yet both were fearful of revealing that fact to their fellow mortals. The conviction stole over Donald McKaye that he was not being true to himself, that he was not a man of honor in the fullest sense or a gentleman in the broadest meaning of the word. And that, to the heir of a principality, was a dangerous thought.
He then took tender leave of the girl and walked all the way home. His father had not retired when he reached The Dreamerie, and the sight of that stern yet kindly and wholly understandable person moved him to sit down beside The Laird on the divan and take the old man's hand in his childishly.
"Dad, I'm in hell's own hole!" he blurted. "I'm so unhappy!"
"Yes, son; I know you are. And it breaks me all up to think that, for the first time in my life, I can't help you. All the money in the world will not buy the medicine that'll cure you."
"I have to go through that, too, I suppose," his son complained, and jerked his head toward the stairs, where, as a matter of fact, his sister Jane crouched at the time, striving to eavesdrop. "I had a notion, as I walked home, that I'd refuse to permit them to discuss my business with me."
"This particular business of yours is, unfortunately, something which they believe to be their business, also. God help me, I agree with them!"
"Well, they had better be mighty careful how they speak of Nan Brent," Donald returned darkly. "This is something I have to fight out alone. By the way, are you going to old Caleb's funeral, dad?"