Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone together made an extraordinary demonstration. Finlay, with an obvious effort, let it lie upon him. The tension of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, leaning forward and burying his head in his hands.
“Will you say I have no claim to speak?” asked Dr Drummond, and met silence. “It is upon my lips to beg you not to send that letter, Finlay.” He took his hand from the young man’s shoulder, inserted a thumb in each of his waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk.
“On my own account I must send it,” said Finlay. “On Miss Murchison’s—she bids me to. We have gone into the matter together.”
“I can imagine what you made of it together. There’s a good deal of her father in Advena. He would be the last man to say a word for himself. You told her this tale you have told me, and she told you to get Miss Christie out and marry her without delay, eh? And what would you expect her to tell you—a girl of that spirit?”
“I cannot see why pride should influence her.”
“Then you know little about women. It was pride, pure and simple, Finlay, that made her tell you that—and she’ll be a sorry woman if you act on it.”
“No,” said Finlay, suddenly looking up, “I may know little about women, but I know more about Advena Murchison than that. She advised me in the sense she thought right and honourable, and her advice was sincere. And, Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison’s view of the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it. It must stand by itself.”
“You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness and that of another person. I can’t agree, Finlay. I spoke first of Advena Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. I feel, too, that someone should put her case. Her own father would never open his lips. If you’re to be hauled over the coals about this I’m the only man to do it. And I’m going to.”
A look of sharp determination came into the minister’s eyes; he had the momentary air of a small Scotch terrier with a bidding. Finlay looked at him in startled recognition of another possible phase of his dilemma; he thought he knew it in every wretched aspect. It was a bold reference of Dr Drummond’s; it threw down the last possibility of withdrawal for Finlay; they must have it out now, man to man, with a little, perhaps, even in that unlikely place, of penitent to confessor. It was an exigency, it helped Finlay to pull himself together, and there was something in his voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief.
“I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of telling you, sir,” he said, “that—the state of feeling—between Miss Murchison and myself should have been so plain to you. It is incomprehensible to me that it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have understood it truly myself. I hope you will believe that it was the strangest, most unexpected, most sudden revelation.”