"You yourself have made it impossible for me to marry any one but Marion; though, believe me, if I could find another 'fisher-girl' like Sophy, I would defy everything, and gladly and proudly marry her to-morrow."
"That is understood; you need not reiterate. I see through Miss Glamis now, the deceitful, ungrateful creature!"
"Mother, I am going to marry Miss Glamis. You must teach yourself to speak respectfully of her."
"I hate her worse than I hated Sophy. I am the most wretched of women;" and her air of misery was so genuine and hopeless that it hurt Archie very sensibly.
"I am sorry," he said; "but you, and you only, are to blame. I have no need to go over your plans and plots for this very end; I have no need to remind you how you seasoned every hour of poor Sophy's life with your regrets that Marion was not my wife. These circumstances would not have influenced me, but her name has been mixed up with mine and smirched in the contact."
"And you will make a woman with a 'smirched' name Mistress of Braelands? Have you no family pride?"
"I will wrong no woman, if I know it; that is my pride. If I wrong them, I will right them. However, I give myself no credit about righting Marion, her father made me do so."
"My humiliation is complete, I shall die of shame."
"Oh, no! You will do as I do--make the best of the affair. You can talk of Marion's fortune and of her relationship to the Earl of Glamis, and so on."
"That nasty, bullying old man! And you to be frightened by him! It is too shameful."
"I was not frightened by him; but I have dragged one poor innocent woman's name through the dust and dirt of public discussion, and, before God, Mother, I would rather die than do the same wrong to another. You know the Admiral's temper; once roused to action, he would spare no one, not even his own daughter. It was then my duty to protect her."
"I have nursed a viper, and it has bitten me. To-night I feel as if the bite would be fatal."
"Marion is not a viper; she is only a woman bent on protecting herself. However, I wish you would remember that she is to be your daughter-in-law, and try and meet her on a pleasant basis. Any more scandal about Braelands will compel me to shut up this house absolutely and go abroad to live."
The next day Madame put all her pride and hatred out of sight and went to call on Marion with congratulations; but the girl was not deceived. She gave her the conventional kiss, and said all that it was proper to say; but Madame's overtures were not accepted.