“There is no story to tell. She was merely a young companion of my aunt Flora. I knew her for some years--in fact, until she married Mr. Gwynne. She was a noble woman.”
“Really, Angus, I shall grow jealous,” said Mrs. Rothesay, half in jest, half in earnest. “She must have been an old love of yours.”
Her husband frowned. “Folly, Sybilla! She was a woman, and I a schoolboy!”
And yet the words galled him, for they were not far off the truth. True, Alison was old enough to have been his mother; but many a precocious lad of sixteen conceives a similar romantic passion, and Angus Rothesay had really been very much in love, as he thought, with Alison Balfour.
Even when he quitted the room, and walked out into the road, his thoughts went backward many years; picturing the old dull mansion, whose only brightness had come with her presence. He remembered how he used to walk by her side, in lonely mountain rambles--he a young boy, and she a grown woman; and how proud he was, when she stooped her tall stature to lean upon his arm. Once, she kissed him; and he lay awake all night, and many a night after, dreaming of the remembered bliss. And, as he grew a youth, what delicious sweetness in these continued dreams! what pride to think himself “in love”--and with such a woman! Folly it was--hopeless folly--for she had been long betrothed to one she loved. But that was not Owen Gwynne. Alas! Alison, like many another proud, passionate woman, had married in sudden anger, thereby wrecking her whole life! When she did so, Angus Rothesay lost his boyish dream. He had already begun to find out that it was only a dream; though his first fancy's idol never ceased to be to him a memory full of all that was noble and beautiful in womanhood.
For many years this enchanted portion of Captain Rothesay's past life had rarely crossed his mind; but when it did, it was always with a half-unconscious thought, that he himself might have been a better and a happier man, had his own beautiful Sybilla been more like Alison Balfour.
This chance news of her awakened memories connected with other scenes and characters, which had gradually melted away from Angus Rothesay's life, or been enveloped in the mist of selfishness and worldliness which had gathered over it and over him. He thought of the old uncle, Sir Andrew Rothesay, whose pride he had been; of the sweet aunt Flora, whose pale beauty had bent over his cradle with a love almost like a mother's, save that it was so very very sad. One had died estranged; the other--he would not let many weeks pass before he sought out Miss Flora Rothesay: that he was determined on! And to do so, the best plan would be first to go and see Alison--Mrs. Gwynne.