The Woman Thou Gavest Me

rning.




TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER


I was sitting in my own room, writing to the Reverend Mother, to tell
her of my return home, when I heard the toot of a horn and raising my
eyes saw a motor-car coming up the drive. It contained three gentlemen,
one of them wore goggles and carried a silver-haired terrier on his
knees.

A little later Nessy MacLeod came to tell me that Lord Raa and his party
had arrived and I was wanted immediately.

I went downstairs hesitatingly, with a haunting sense of coming trouble.
Reaching the door of the drawing-room I saw my intended husband for the
first time--there being nothing in his appearance to awaken in me the
memory of ever having seen him before.

He was on the hearthrug in front of the fire, talking to Betsy Beauty,
who was laughing immoderately. To get a better look at him, and at the
same time to compose myself, I stopped for a moment to speak to the
three gentlemen (the two lawyers and Lord Raa's trustee or guardian) who
were standing with my father in the middle of the floor.

He was undoubtedly well-dressed and had a certain air of breeding, but
even to my girlish eyes he betrayed at that first sight the character of
a man who had lived an irregular, perhaps a dissipated life.

His face was pale, almost puffy, his grey eyes were slow and heavy, his
moustache was dark and small, his hair was thin over his forehead, and
he had a general appearance of being much older than his years, which I
knew to be thirty-three.

His manners, when I approached him, were courteous and gentle, almost
playful and indulgent, but through all their softness there pierced a
certain hardness, not to say brutality, which I afterwards learned (when
life had had its tug at me) to associate with a man who has spent much
of his time among women of loose character.

Betsy Beauty made a great matter of introducing us; but in a drawling
voice, and with a certain play of humour, he told her it was quite
unnecessary, since we were very old friends, having made

Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH, KBE (May 14, 1853August 31, 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British author. He is best known as a novelist and playwright of the late Victorian and the Edwardian eras. In his time he was exceedingly popular and at the peak of his success his novels outsold those of his contemporaries. Many of his novels were also made into films. His novels were primarily romantic in nature, involving the love triangle, but they did also address some of the more serious political and social issues of the day.

Harold MacGrath (September 4, 1871 - October 30, 1932) was a bestselling American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Also known occasionally as Harold McGrath, he was born in Syracuse, New York. As a young man, he worked as a reporter and columnist on the Syracuse Herald newspaper until the late 1890s when he published his first novel, a romance titled Arms and the Woman. According to the New York Times, his next book, The Puppet Crown, was the No.7 bestselling book in the United States for all of 1901. From that point on, MacGrath never looked back, writing novels for the mass market about love, adventure, mystery, spies, and the like at an average rate of more than one a year. He would have three more of his books that were among the top ten bestselling books of the year. At the same time, he penned a number of short stories for major American magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, and Red Book magazine. Several of MacGraths novels were seriali

Mabel Collins (9 September 1851 - 31 March 1927) was a theosophist and author of over 46 books. She was born in St Peter Port, Guernsey.