“Yes, Ronald, my man. It was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said.

She was lying on a sofa in the little drawing-room, between the fireplace and the window, where she could both feel and see the fire, and yet command a glimpse of the village and Dr. Jardine’s house. She could still see the window to which the doctor came defiantly when he took his mid-morning refreshment, to let the ladies at Rosebank see that he was not afraid of them.

The relations between the doctor and the ladies had modified a little, but still that little conflict went on. He did not any longer nod at them with the “Here’s to you!” of his old fury at what he thought their constant espionage, but he still flaunted his dram before their eyes, and still they made mental notes on the subject, and Miss Beenie shook her head. She did not say, “There’s that abominable man with his dram again. I am sure I cannot think how respectable people can put up with that smell of whisky. Did you say sherry? Well, sherry is very near as bad taken at all hours.”

What Miss Beenie said now was: “I wish the doctor would take a cup of tea or even a little broth instead of that wine. No doubt he wants support with all he has to do; but the other would be far better for him.”

This will show how the relations had improved. He had brought Miss Dempster “through.” Instead of her bedroom at the back of the house, which allowed of little diversion, she had got so far as to be removed to the drawing-room, and lie on the sofa for the greater part of the day. It was a great improvement, and people who knew no better believed that the old lady was getting better. Miss Beenie was warmly of this opinion; she held it with such heat indeed that she might have been supposed to be not so certain as she said.

But Miss Dempster and the doctor knew better. The old lady was more than ever distressed that Providence had not taken better care of the affairs of Effie Ogilvie. It was this she was saying to Ronald, as he sat beside her. He had come over with some birds and a great bunch of hothouse grapes. He was, as the reader may remember, a connection—even, Miss Beenie said, a near connection: and the ladies had been good to him in his early youth.

“Yes, it was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said. “I am not grudging your uncle Dauvid a day of his life, honest man—but the three last months is never much of a boon, as I know by myself. It would have done him no harm, and you a great deal of good. But there’s just a kind of a blundering in these things that is very hard to understand.”

“The chances are it would have made no difference,” said the young man, “so there is nothing to be said.”

“It would have made a great difference; but we’ll say nothing, all the same. And so you’re asked to the wedding? Well, that woman is not blate. She’s interfered with the course of nature and thinks no shame: but perhaps she will get her punishment sooner than she’s looking for. They tell me,” said the old lady, “that the Diroms have had losses, and that probably they will have to leave Allonby, and come down in their grand way of living. I will say that of Janet Ogilvie that she has a great spirit; she’ll set her face like a rock. The wedding will be just as grand and as much fuss made, and nobody will hear a word from her; she is a woman that can keep her own counsel. But she’ll be gnashing her teeth all the same. She will just be in despair that she cannot get out of it. Oh, I know her well! If it had been three months off instead of three weeks, she would have shaken him off. I have always said Effie’s heart was not in it; but however her heart had been in it, her stepmother would have had her way.”

“We must be charitable, we must think ill of nobody,” said Miss Beenie. “I’m too thankful, for my part, to say an ill word, now you’re getting well again.”

“She might have done all that and done nothing wrong,” said Miss Dempster sharply. And then Ronald rose to go away; he had no desire to hear such possibilities discussed. If it had not been for Eric’s expected arrival he would have gone away before now. It was nothing but misery, he said to himself, to see Effie, and to think that had he been three months sooner, as his old friends said!

But no, he would not believe that; it was injurious to Effie to think that the first who appeared was her choice. He grew red and hot with generous shame and contempt of himself when he thought that this was what he was attributing to one so spotless and so true. The fact that she had consented to marry Fred Dirom, was not that enough to prove his merit, to prove that she would never have regarded any other? What did it not say for a man, the fact that he had been chosen by Effie? It was the finest proof that he was everything a man could be.

Ronald had never seen this happy hero. No doubt there had been surgings of heart against him, and fits of sorrowful fury when he first knew; but the idea that he was Effie’s choice silenced the young man. He himself could have nothing to do with that, he had not even the right to complain. He had to stand aside and see it accomplished. All that the old lady said about the chances of the three months too late was folly. It was one of the strange ways of women that they should think so. It was a wrong to Effie, who not by any guidance of chance, not because (oh horror!) this Dirom fellow was the first to ask her, for nothing but pure love and preference (of which no man was worthy) had chosen him from the world.

Ronald, thinking these thoughts, which were not cheerful, walked down the slope between the laurel hedges with steps much slower and less decided than his ordinary manly tread. He was a very different type of humanity from Fred Dirom—not nearly so clever, be it said, knowing not half so much, handsomer, taller, and stronger, without any subtlety about him or power of divination, seeing very clearly what was before him with a pair of keen and clear blue eyes, straightforward as an arrow; but with no genius for complication nor much knowledge of the modifying effect of circumstances. He liked or he did not like, he approved or he did not approve: and all of these things strenuously, with the force of a nature which was entirely honest, and knew no guile.

Such a man regards a decision as irrevocable, he understands no playing with possibilities. It did not occur to him to make any effort to shake Effie’s allegiance to her betrothed, or to trouble her with any disclosure of his own sentiments. He accepted what was, with that belief in the certainty of events which belongs to what is called the practical or positive nature in the new jargon, to the simple and primitive mind, that is to say. Ronald, who was himself as honest as the day, considered it the first principle in existence that his fellow-creatures were honest too, that they meant what they said, and when they had decided upon a course of action did not intend to be turned from it, whatever it might cost to carry it out.

Therefore it was not in this straightforward young man to understand all the commotion which was in poor little Effie’s mind when she avoided him, cast down her eyes not to meet his, and made the shortest answers to the few remarks he ventured to address to her. It hurt him that she should be so distant, making him wonder whether she thought so little of him as to suppose that he would give her any annoyance, say anything or even look anything to disturb her mind.

How little she knew him! but not so little as he knew her. They met this day, as fate would have it, at the gate of Rosebank, and were obliged to stop and talk for a minute, and even to walk along with each other for the few steps during which their road lay in the same direction. They did not know what to say to each other; he because he knew his mind so well, she because she knew hers so imperfectly, and felt her position so much.

Effie was in so strange a condition that it seemed to her she would like to tell Ronald everything: how she was going to marry Fred she could not tell why—because she had not liked to give him pain by refusing him, because she seemed not to be able to do anything else. She did not know why she wanted to tell this to Ronald, which she would not have done to anyone else. There seemed to be some reason why he should know the real state of affairs, a sort of apology to make, an explanation—she could not tell what.

But when they stood face to face, neither Ronald nor she could find anything to say. He gave the report of Miss Dempster that she was a little better; that was the bulletin which by tacit agreement was always given—she was a little better, but still a great invalid. When that subject was exhausted, they took refuge in Eric. When was he expected? though the consciousness in both their minds that it was for the wedding he was coming, was a sad obstacle to speech.

“He is expected in three weeks. He is starting, I suppose, now,” Effie said.

“Yes, he must be starting now——” And then they both paused, with the strongest realization of the scene that would ensue. Effie saw herself a bride far more clearly at that moment through the eyes, so to speak, of Ronald, than she ever had through those of the man who was to be her husband.

“I think I shall go back with him when he goes,” said Ronald, “if I don’t start before.”

“Are you going back?”

He smiled as if it had been very ridiculous to ask him such a question.

“What else,” he said—there seemed a sort of sad scorn in the inquiry—“What else is left for me to do?” Perhaps he would have liked to put it more strongly—What else have you left me to do?

“I am very sorry,” said Effie, “I thought——” and then she abandoned this subject altogether. “Do you think Eric will see much change?” she said.

“Eric! Oh, yes; he will see a great deal of change. The country and all look the same to be sure; it is the people who alter. He will see a great deal of change in you, Miss Ogilvie.”

Effie looked up with tears starting in her eyes as if he had given her a sudden blow.

“Oh, Ronald! why do you call me that—am I not Effie—always——” And there came a little sob in her throat, stopping further utterance.

He looked as if he could have cried too, but smiled instead strangely, and said, “When you have—another name, how am I to call you by that? I must try and begin now.”

“But I shall always be Effie, always,” she said.

Ronald did not make any reply. He raised his hands in a momentary protestation, and gave her a look which said more than he had ever said in words. And then they walked on a few steps together in silence, and then stopped and shook hands silently with a mutual impulse, and said to each other “good-bye.”

When Effie got near home, still full of agitation from this strange little opening and closing of she knew not what—some secret page in her own history, inscribed with a record she had known nothing of—she met her stepmother, who was returning very alert and business-like from a walk.

“What have you been saying to Ronald?” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “to make him look so grave? I saw him turn the corner, and I thought he had seen a ghost, poor lad; but afterwards it proved to be only you. You should not be so severe: for he has liked you long, though you knew nothing about it; and it must have been very hard upon him, poor fellow, to find that he had come home just too late, and that you had been snapped up, as a person may say, under his very nose.”

This was so strange an address that it took away Effie’s breath. She gave her stepmother a look half stupified, half horrified. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Well, Effie, my dear, you must just learn; and I don’t think you will find it very difficult, if you will give your attention to it. I have been wanting to speak to you for two or three days, and your father too. You must not trouble about Fred Dirom any more. I have never been quite satisfied in my own mind that your heart was in it, if he had not been so pressing and pushing, and, as we all thought, such a good match. But you see it turns out that’s not the case, Effie. I got a letter yesterday from my cousin John; and it’s all true about Dirom’s firm. They are just going down hill as fast as can be, and probably by this time they’ve failed. Though you don’t know about business, you know what that means. It is just the end of all things; and to hold the young man to his promise in such circumstances would be out of the question. We are quite agreed upon that, both your father and me. So, my dear Effie, you are free. It mightn’t have become you to take steps; so your father and me—we have acted for you; and now you are free.”

Effie stopped short in the road, and stared at the speaker aghast. If her heart gave a little leap to hear that word, it was merely an instinctive movement, and meant nothing. Her mind was full of consternation. She was confounded by the suddenness, by the strangeness of the communication.

Free! What did it mean, and why was it? Free! She repeated the word to herself after a while, still looking at her stepmother. It was but a single little word. It meant—what? The world seemed to go round and round with Effie, the dim November skies, the gray of the wintry afternoon, the red shaft of the setting sun beyond—all whirled about her. “Free!” She repeated it as an infant repeats a foreign word without knowing what it means.

“Now, Effie,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “don’t let us have any pretences: that is all I ask of you. Just face the thing honestly, and don’t let us have any make-believe. If you tell me that you are deep in love with Fred Dirom and can’t give him up, I will just not believe you. All I will think is that you are a little cutty, and have no heart at all. I was very glad you should make such a good match; but I could see all along your heart was not in it. And whatever he might say, I made no doubt but you would be thankful. So let us have none of your little deceptions here.”

“I don’t think I understand,” said Effie, striving to speak. “I think I must have lost my senses or my hearing, or something. What was it you were saying? They say people call things by wrong names sometimes, and can’t help it. Perhaps they hear wrong, too. What is it that you mean?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, with some exasperation; “I have just written breaking off your marriage—is that plain enough? I’ve done it under your father’s orders. It was he that accepted and I’m thinking it’s he that has a right to refuse—It’s all broken off—I cannot speak any plainer. Now, do you understand what I say?”

Effie had grown very pale—she shivered as if with cold—her lips quivered when she began to speak.

“And that is,” she said, “because he has failed—because he is not a good match now, but a poor man—is that what it is?”

“If you like to put it in that broad way. Of course he is not in a condition to marry any longer. It is the kindest thing we can do——”

“Give me your letter,” said Effie, holding out her hand. There was something threatening, something dangerous, about the girl, which made Mrs. Ogilvie scream out.

“My letter! I am not in the habit of showing my letters to anybody but your father. And even if I was disposed to show it I cannot, for I’ve just been to the post and put it in with my own hand. And by this time it is stamped and in the bag to go away. So you must take my description of it. I will be very happy to tell you all I have said.”

“You have just been to the post to put it in!” Effie repeated the words, her eyes growing larger every moment, her face more ghastly. Then she gave a strange cry like a wounded creature, and turned and flew back towards the village neither pausing nor looking behind her, without a word more. Mrs. Ogilvie stood for a time, her own heart beating a little faster than usual, and a choking sensation in her throat.

“Effie, Effie!” she cried after her—but Effie took no notice. She went along through the dim air like a flying shadow, and soon was out of sight, taking no time either for breath or thought. Where had she gone? wherever she went, what could she do? It was for her good; all through it had been for her good. If she mistook at first, yet after she must come round.

Effie had fled in the opposite direction to Allonby. Where was she going? what could she do? Mrs. Ogilvie made a rapid glance at the possibilities and decided that there was really nothing which the girl could do. She drew a long breath to relieve the oppression which in spite of herself had seized upon her, the sudden panic and alarm.

What could Effie do?—just nothing! She would run and tell her Uncle John, but though the minister was a man full of crotchets he was still more or less a man of sense, and he had never been very keen on the match. He would speak to her sensibly and she would see it when he said it, though not when Mrs. Ogilvie said it: and she would come home.

And then Ronald would get another invitation to his dinner. It was all as simple as A B C.