He never rested till he got to Scotland. He went straight to Torbreck, where he interviewed the landlady. Miss Rivers had gone. She had gone to London to stay with her sister.
Sir Albert did not choose to say that her sister was not there, but he made many minute inquiries about her health, and left Mrs. Munro much impressed by his manner, and the thoughtful remarks he made.
"He is a real bonny man," she said afterwards, "and, my certie, he kens how to put questions. He was as particular as he could be. Miss Rivers this and Miss Rivers that. She's a straight nose has Miss Rivers. I'm no denying it, but she does not follow it. Miss Margaret's a deal friendlier; weel-a-weel, its a' ordered for the best."
Mrs. Dorriman was much taken aback when once more Sir Albert was shown into the drawing-room at Renton. She was too timid not to be alarmed by the arrival of a man who had made no secret of his admiration for Margaret.
Did he know anything, and what did he know? Her expression was so distinctly interrogatory that he answered it, and advancing towards her, and not waiting for the usual conventional greeting, he said, "I know all, Mrs. Dorriman; I have seen her--I have seen Margaret!"
"Ah!" said the poor little woman, with a deep sigh of relief.
"It has been cruel work," he said, passionately. "Why could you not have saved her?"
"I never knew till too late. How could I save her?" She spoke startled, and for a moment thinking that he was right. Then she remembered--"That unfortunate sister of hers, Grace, would not allow her to send for us. I did not know where she was. And when you left me, you gave me no address; even if I had had it I am not sure I should have written to you. It was then too late. Nothing could have been done.... How is Margaret?" she asked, after a moment's pause.
He did not answer her at once. Then he said in a broken voice, "I never saw any one so changed; she is only a shadow of her former self."
"It has been terrible for us both," he said, hurriedly, in a tone he vainly endeavoured to make calm; "we will speak of it once and never again. She, poor darling, misunderstood something I said to her at Lornbay. It seems so strange to think that she did not see how I adored her. I was not free to speak to her quite openly, because when I was very young, little more than a schoolboy, I got into a foolish scrape, and my mother made me promise never to confess my love to any one without first letting her know it. She understood the word 'free' to mean that I was in some way bound to some one else. Her pride was in arms, and she seems to have fancied that she had not rightly understood me. You can imagine that such an idea worked together with her passionate wish to help Grace, and has ruined our happiness."