"Miss Glendinning," said he, "I want you to tell me if there is anything between Mr. Ross and Miss Stanley?"
Well, this was a frank challenge; and she answered it as frankly.
"I do not think there is," she said; "but I think there might be at any moment. That is only my impression; and I may be quite wrong; and indeed I have no right to say so——"
"But I have appealed to you as a friend, to do me this great favour," said he; and then he paused for a second. "The fact is," he went on, as if with some unwillingness, "I have noticed one or two odd things—Miss Stanley's indignation with her brother if he said anything against Mr. Ross—and the painful scene of yesterday evening—these things might lead one to conjecture——"
"Oh, but I'm sure there is nothing between them—nothing at present, at least," said Käthchen, with some earnestness; for this assurance she could honestly give him; and when did a perplexed and troubled lover ever appeal in vain to a woman's heart? "There is nothing between them at present, I am certain of that; and whether there ever may be, who can tell? Both of them have peculiar natures. Both of them are proud; and she, besides that, is wilful and impulsive; while he is reserved—and—and you might almost think cold—only that I imagine his studiously keeping away from her, and treating her with a kind of distant civility, has some meaning and intention in it. I don't think he would like to become the slave of any woman; and she—well, she is very independent, too. And then both of them are very peculiarly situated: there is the old-standing feud between the two families; it must have been hard on him and on his mother to have strangers coming into the neighbourhood, tearing down the old landmarks. There are things that the Highland nature can never forget; and Mary knows that well; more than once she has said to me, 'Käthchen, there are wrongs that can never be undone; I can never rebuild Castle Heimra.'"
"Yes, yes, I quite understand," said he, rather absently; "and yet Ross does not seem to bear any resentment—not against her. No, nor against any one belonging to her. I must say for him that his forbearance yesterday towards Fred Stanley was most remarkable: that was another thing that struck me as peculiar. And yet you say there is nothing between him and Miss Stanley?"
"Nothing, I am certain," Käthchen assured him again.
"I am so awfully obliged to you!" he said, with some little expression of relief; and yet he was thoughtful and silent as they walked back to the house—Käthchen having got all the flowers she wanted.
That night, after dinner, when the two young ladies retired to the drawing-room, Mary seemed somewhat disturbed.
"Don't you think it rather strange, Käthchen," she said, "that Big Archie brought no message back from Heimra? I don't mean an answer. I don't mean an answer to my note. That was not necessary—it was hardly to be expected. But why has he not come to say he delivered my letter?"