Possibly the fact that he was not quite so
kind to me in my illness as I had expected, and that I felt hurt in
consequence, aided the doubt. Then the thought of my father
returning and finding that I had left him, came and burned in my
heart like fire. But what was I to do? I had never been out of
Aberdeen before. I did not know even a word of French. I was
altogether in Lord Rothie's power. I thought I loved him, but it
was not much of love that sea-sickness could get the better of.
With a heart full of despair I went on shore. The captain slipped
a note into my hand. I put it in my pocket, but pulled it out with
my handkerchief in the street. Lord Rothie picked it up. I begged
him to give it me, but he read it, and then tore it in pieces. I
entered the hotel, as wretched as girl could well be. I began to
dislike him. But during dinner he was so kind and attentive that I
tried to persuade myself that my fears were fanciful. After dinner
he took me out. On the stairs we met a lady whose speech was
Scotch. Her maid called her Lady Janet. She looked kindly at me as
I passed. I thought she could read my face. I remembered
afterwards that Lord Rothie turned his head away when we met her.
We went into the cathedral. We were standing under that curious
dome, and I was looking up at its strange lights, when down came a
rain of bell-notes on the roof over my head. Before the first tune
was over, I seemed to expect the second, and then the third, without
thinking how I could know what was coming; but when they ended with
the ballad of the Witch Lady, and I lifted up my head and saw that I
was not by my father's fireside, but in Antwerp Cathedral with Lord
Rothie, despair filled me with a half-insane resolution.
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