At Last

"Yes, Ermine Williams, forgive all that is past, and feel for an old,
it may be, a dying man, and for a motherless infant. There is much to
forget, but I trust to your overcoming any scruples, and giving me all
the comfort in your power, in thinking of the poor child who has come
into the world under such melancholy circumstances.

"Yours most truly, "Keith of Gowanbrae"

"Poor Keith, he has given me his letter open, his real anxiety has been
too much at last for his dignity; and now, my Ermine, what do you say to
his entreaty? The state of the case is this. How soon this abscess may
be ready for the operation is still uncertain, the surgeons think it
will be in about three weeks, and in this interval he wishes to complete
all his arrangements. In plain English, his strongest desire is to
secure the poor little boy from falling into Menteith's hands. Now, mine
is a precarious life, and Alick and Rachel may of course be at the ends
of the earth, so the point is that you shall be 'one of the family,'
before the will is signed. Alick's leave has been extended to the 1st of
October, no more is possible, and he undertakes to nurse poor Keith
for a fortnight from to-morrow, if you will consent to fulfil this same
request within that time. After the 1st, I should have to leave you, but
as soon as Keith is well enough to bear the journey, he wishes to return
to Edinburgh, where he would be kindly attended to by Alick and Rachel
all the winter. There, Ermine, your victory is come, your consent has
been entreated at last by my brother, not for my sake, but as a personal
favour to himself, because there is no woman in the world of whom he
thinks so highly. For myself I say little. I grieve that you should be
thus hurried and fluttered, and if Ailie thinks it would harm you, she
must telegraph back to me not to come down, and I will try to teach
myself patience by preaching it to Keith, but otherwise you will see me
by four o'clock to-morrow. Every time I hear Rachel's name, I think it
ought to have been yours, and surely in this fourteenth year, lesser
objections may give way. But persuasions are out of the question, you
must be entirely led by your own feeling. If I could have seen you in
July, this should not have come so suddenly at last. "Yours, more than
ever, decide as you may, "Colin A Keith.