"Grandfather – you will not be angry – ?"
"What's this, now?" he said, wheeling round and staring at her, for the peculiarity of her tone had caught his ear.
"Grandfather," she continued, in almost piteous embarrassment. "I – I wish to say something to you – I have been thinking about it for a long while back – and yet afraid you mightn't understand – you might be angry – "
"Well, well, what is it?" he said, impatiently. "What are you dissatisfied with? I don't see that you've much to complain of, or I either. We don't live a life of grandeur; nor is there much excitement about it; but it is fairly comfortable. I consider we are very well off."
"We are too well off, grandfather," she said, sadly.
He started at this, and stared at her again.
"What do you mean?"
"Grandfather," she said, in the same pathetic voice, "don't you see that I am no longer a child? I am a woman. And I am doing nothing. Why did you give me so careful an education if I am not to use it? I wish to earn something – I – I wish to keep you and me, grandfather – "
The stammering sentences ceased: he replied slowly, and perhaps a trifle coldly.
"Why did I have you carefully educated? Well, I should have thought you might have guessed – might have understood. But I will tell you. I have given you what education was possible in our circumstances in order to fit you for the station which some day you may be called upon to fill. And if not, if it is fated that injustice and iniquity are to be in our case perpetual, at all events you must be worthy of the name you bear. But it was not as an implement of trade," he continued, more warmly, "that I gave you such education as was possible in our wandering lives. What do you want to do? Teach music? And you would use your trained hand and ear – and your trained soul, which is of more importance still – to drum mechanical rudiments into the brats of some bourgeois household? A fit employment for a Bethune of Balloray!"
She seemed bewildered – and agonised.
"Grandfather, I must speak! I must speak! You may be angry or not – but – but I am no longer a child – I can see how we are situated – and – and if it is pride that causes me to speak, remember who it is that has taught me to think of our name. Grandfather, let us begin a new life! I can work – I am old enough to work – I would slave my fingers to the bone for you! Grandfather, why should you accept assistance from any one? – from Lord Musselburgh or any one? No, I do not blame you – I have always thought that everything you did was right – and kind and good; but I cannot be a child any longer – I must say what I think and feel. Grandfather – "
But here the incoherent appeal broke down; she fell on her knees before him, and clasped her hands over her face; and in the dark the old man – stern and immovable – could hear the sound of her violent sobbing.
"I will work – oh, I will work night and day, grandfather," she continued, wildly, "if only you will take my money and not from any one else! I will go on the stage – I will turn dressmaker – I will go anywhere or do anything – and work hard and hard – if only you will consent! There would not be so much sacrifice, grandfather – a little, not much – and don't you think we should be all the happier? I have spoken at last, grandfather – you will forgive me! I could not keep silent any longer. It has been weighing on my heart – and now – now you are going to say yes, grandfather – and to-morrow – to-morrow we begin differently. We are so much alone – let us live for each other – let us be independent of every one! Now you are going to say yes, grandfather – and indeed, indeed I will work for both of us, oh, so gladly! – "
"Have you finished?" he asked.
She rose, and would have seized his hand to enforce her appeal, but he withdrew a step, and motioned her to be seated.
"I am glad of this opportunity," he said, in a formal and measured fashion. "You say you have become a woman; and it is natural you should begin and think for yourself; hitherto I have treated you as a child, and you have obeyed and believed implicitly. As for your immediate wish, I may say at once that is impossible. There is no kind of work for which you are fitted – even if I were prepared to live on your earnings, which I am not. The stage? What could you do on the stage! Do you think an actress is made at a moment's notice? Or a dress-maker either? How could you turn dressmaker to-morrow? – because you can hem handkerchiefs? And as for making use of your education, do you know of the thousands of girls whose French and Italian and music are as good as yours, and who can barely gain their food by teaching? – "
He altered his tone; and spoke more proudly.
"But what I say is this, that you do not understand, you have not yet understood, my position. When George Bethune condescends to accept assistance, as you call it, he receives no favour, he confers an honour. I know my rights, and stand on them; yes, and I know my wrongs – and how trifling the compensations ever likely to be set against them. You spoke of Lord Musselburgh; but Lord Musselburgh – a mushroom peer – the representative of a family dragged from nothingness by James VI. – Lord Musselburgh knew better than you – well he knew – that he was honouring himself in receiving into his house a Bethune of Balloray. And as for his granting me assistance, that was his privilege, his opportunity, his duty. Should not I have done the like, and gladly, if our positions had been reversed? Noblesse oblige. I belong to his order – and to a family older by centuries than his. If there was a favour conferred to-day at Musselburgh House, it was not on my shoulders that it fell."
He spoke haughtily, and yet without anger; and there was a ring of sincerity in his tones that could not be mistaken. The girl sate silent and abashed.
"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?"
"His granddaughter, I think he said."
"She is the most beautiful human creature I ever beheld!" the young man exclaimed, rather breathlessly.
His friend looked at him – and laughed.
"That's not like you,