"She just stared at me. 'Are you gone clean daft, Dr
Drummond?' she said. 'There could be no grounds serious
enough for that. I will not believe that Hugh Finlay has
compromised himself in any way.' I had to stop her; I
was obliged to tell her there was nothing of the
kind--nothing of the kind; and later on I'll have to
settle with my conscience about that. 'I meant,' I said,
the reasonable grounds of an alternative: 'An alternative?'
said she. To cut a long story short," continued the
Doctor, leaning forward, always with the finger in his
waistcoat pocket to emphasize what he said, "I represented
to Mrs Kilbannon that Miss Cameron was not in sentimental
relations toward you, that she had some reason to suspect
you of having placed your affections elsewhere, and that
I myself was very much taken up with what I had seen of
Miss Cameron. In brief, I said to Mrs Kilbannon that if
Miss Cameron saw no objection to altering the arrangements
to admit of it, I should be pleased to marry her myself.
The thing was much more suitable in every way. I was
fifty-three years of age last week, I told her, 'but' I
said, 'Miss Cameron is thirty-six or seven, if she's a
day, and Finlay there would be like nothing but a grown-up
son to her. I can offer her a good home and the minister's
pew in a church that any woman might be proud of--and
though far be it from me,' I said, 'to depreciate mission
work, either home or foreign, Miss Cameron in that field
would be little less than thrown away.
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