“Love another!  Promised to another!  Not Grey Jerrold?” Jack exclaimed, and Bessie answered him: 

“No, not Mr. Jerrold.  He never thought of me that way.  It surely cannot be wrong to tell you now, though I am pledged to secrecy for awhile.  I told father just before he died, I am plighted to my Cousin Neil, and we are only waiting for him to find something to do, or his mother to be reconciled to me, to be married.”

“Plighted to Neil!  To Neil McPherson! You!” Jack exclaimed, and for a moment his cheek grew pale and then flushed with resentment, as he thought of this fair young girl being thus sacrificed to one who, he knew, was not worthy of her.

Jack was fond of Neil in a certain way, but he knew him thoroughly and knew that supreme selfishness was his ruling principle, and that Bessie’s life with him would be quite as hard as it had been with her father; besides this, he could not reconcile this engagement with the fact that he knew Neil to be very attentive to Blanche Trevellian, to whom current rumor said he was certainly engaged.  Hence, his astonishment, which Bessie was quick to detect, for she answered him a little proudly: 

“Yes, I!  Do you think it so very strange that Neil should have chosen me?”

“No, Bessie,” he replied; “but strange that you should have chosen him.  I cannot help it, Bessie, and I do not mean to be disloyal to Neil, when I say that he will not make you happy, and further, that you will never marry him.  I am sure of it, and knowing that he only stands in my way, I can still hope for the future, and when you are free, remember I shall come again.  Good-by, Bessie, and forgive me if I have wounded you.  In my bitter disappointment I spoke out what I thought.  I must go now, and with a heavy heart, Flossie will be so disappointed, too.”

He had risen as he spoke, and offered her his hand, which she took, and lifting her eyes full of tears to his face, she said: 

“I have faith in Neil; if I had not, I believe I should die.  He cannot help his mother’s pride and opposition to our marriage.  He is true to me through all, and he will come to me as soon as he knows of my trouble, I am sorry for you, Mr. Trevellian, if you really care for me, but you will get over that feeling and be again my friend.  I do not wish to lose you, I have so few friends, oh, so few.  I am sorry too, for Flossie, and interested in her.  Mr. Trevellian, why don’t you marry Flossie yourself and so keep her at the castle?”

“I marry Flossie!  That child!” Jack exclaimed, staring blankly at Bessie, who smiled faintly and said: 

“She is seventeen; I am eighteen, and yet you sought me!”

“Yes, I know,” Jack rejoined, “but there is a vast difference between you and Flossie; she is so small and she seems so young.  I did not suppose she was seventeen.  I have always looked upon her as a mere child to pet and not as a woman to marry.”