“Oh, it is little I care for the ball-room,” cried Kirsteen, remembering her grievance, which she told with something of the fire and indignation of her original feeling. He laughed softly, and shook his head.
“Never you fash your head about such folly. When my Lord John goes to St. James’s the men of fashion and their ladies will say much the same of him, and you will be well avenged.”
“It’s very childish to think of it at all,” said Kirsteen, with a blush. “And now will you tell me?” She looked up into his face with a sweet and serious attention which bewitched the old gentleman, who was not old at all.
“I was away with my regiment on the continent of Europe and in the Colonies and other places for many years, when I was a young man,” Glendochart said.
“Yes?” said Kirsteen, with profoundest interest--for was not that the only prospect before _him_ too?
“But all the time I was confident there was one waiting for me at home.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” said Kirsteen, as if it had been her own tale.
“The news from the army was slow in those days, and there was many a mistake. Word was sent home that I was killed when I was but badly wounded. I had neither father nor mother to inquire closely, and everybody believed it, and she too. I believe her friends were glad on the whole, for I was a poor match for her. Her heart was nearly broke, but she was very young and she got over it, and, whether with her own will or without it I cannot tell, but when I came home at last it was her wedding-day.”
“Oh!” Kirsteen cried almost with a shriek, “was that the end of her waiting? Me, I would have waited and waited on----”
“Wait now and ye will hear. The marriage was just over when I came to her father’s house thinking no evil. And we met; and when she saw me, and that I was a living man, and remembered the ring that was on her finger and that she was another man’s wife--she went into her own maiden chamber that she had never left and shut to the door. And there she just died, and never spoke another word.”
“Oh, Glendochart!” cried Kirsteen with an anguish of sympathy, thinking of Ronald, and of the poor dead bride, and of the sorrow which seemed to her throbbing heart impossible, as if anything so cruel could not have been. She clasped his arm with both her hands, looking up at him with all her heart in her face.