"No," said he, in the same proud fashion; "during all my troubles, and they have been more numerous than you know or need ever know, I have never cowered, or whimpered, or abased myself before any living being. I have held my head up. My conscience is clear towards all men. 'Stand fast, Craig-Royston!' it has been with me—and shall be!"
He went to the window and shut it.
"Come, light the gas, Maisrie; and let us talk about something else. What I say is this, that if anyone, recognising the injustice that I and mine have suffered, should feel it due to himself, due to humanity, to make some little reparation, why, that is as between man and man—that ought to be considered his privilege; and I take no shame. I ask for no compassion. The years that I can hope for now must be few; but they shall be as those that have gone before. I abase myself before no one. I hold my head erect. I look the world in the face; and ask which of us has the greater cause to complain of the other. 'Stand fast, Craig-Royston!'—that has been my motto; and so, thank God, it shall be to the end!"
Maisrie lit the gas, and attended to her grandfather's other wants—in a mechanical sort of way. But she did not take up the violin again. There was a strangely absent look on the pale and beautiful and pensive face.
CHAPTER II.
NEIGHBOURS.
The young man whom Lord Musselburgh had hailed came into the middle of the room. He was a handsome and well-made young fellow of about three or four-and-twenty, with finely-cut and intelligent features, and clear grey eyes that had a curiously straightforward and uncompromising look in them, albeit his manner was modest enough. At the present moment, however, he seemed somewhat perturbed.
"Who were those two?" he said, quickly.
"Didn't you listen while the old gentleman was declaiming away?" Lord Musselburgh made answer. "An enthusiastic Scot, if ever there was one! I suppose you never heard of the great Bethune lawsuit?"
"But the other—the girl?"