Story of the Egyptian 299

“A year passed,” she continued, “before I
saw him again. In that time he had not asked
for me once, and the gardener had kept me out of
charity. It was by an accident that we met, and
at first he did not know me. Then he said,
‘Why, Babbie, I believe you are to be a beauty,
after all!’ I hated him for that, and stalked
away from him, but he called after me, ‘ Bravo!
she walks like a queen;’ and it was because I
walked like a queen that he sent me to an Edin-
burgh school. He used to come to see me every
year, and as I grew up the girls called me Lady
Rintoul. He was not fond of me; he is not
fond of me now. He would as soon think of
looking at the back of a picture as at what I am
apart from my face, but he dotes on it, and is to
marry it. Is that love? Long before I left
school, which was shortly before you came to
Thrums, he had told his sister that he was deter-
mined to marry me, and she hated me for it,
making me as uncomfortable as she could, so
that I almost looked forward to the marriage
because it would be such a humiliation to her.”

In admitting this she looked shamefacedly at
Gavin, and then went on:

-“Ttis humiliating him, too. I understand him.
He would like not to want to marry me, for he
is ashamed of my origin, but he cannot help it.
It is this feeling that has brought. him here, so
that the marriage may take place where my
history is not known.”

“The secret has been well kept,” Gavin said,
“for they have failed to discover it even in
Thrums.”