et than you surmise. Florimel, you have driven
me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the shock which
must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. I would have
had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, but you drove
those lips of honor from you, and now there are left to utter it only
the lips you hate. Yet the truth you shall receive: it may help to save
you from weakness, arrogance and falsehood. Sister, your mother was
never Lady Lossie."

"You lie! I know you lie! Because you wrong me, you would brand me with
dishonor, to take from me as well the sympathy of the world. But I defy
you."

"Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as Lady
Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all the time, and
in truth died only last year. For twenty years my mother suffered for
yours. In the eye of the law you are no better than the little child his
father denied in your presence. Give that man his dismissal, or he will
give you yours. Never doubt it. Refuse again, and I go from this room to
publish in the next the fact that you are neither Lady Lossie nor Lady
Florimel Colonsay. You have no right to any name but your mother's. You
are Miss Gordon."

She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the horror that
was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand on the back of a
chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her mouth a little open and
rigid--her whole appearance, except for the breath that came short and
quick, that of one who had died in sore pain.

"All that is now left you," concluded Malcolm, "is the choice between
sending Liftore away and being abandoned by him. That choice you must
now make."

The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was burning out,
her forced strength fast failing her.

"Florimel," said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her hand: it
gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird, but the net of his love
held it, and it lay passive and cold--"Florimel, I will be your true
brother. I _am_ your brother, your very own brother, to live for you,
love you, fight for you, watch and ward you, till a true man takes you
for his wife." Her hand quivered like a leaf. "Sister, when you and I
appear before our father, I shall hold up my face before him: will you?"

"Send him away," she breathed rather than said, and sank on the floor.

He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to the drawing-room.