The Third Miss St Quentin

Ella’s eyes filled with soft tears again.

“Sir Philip, do you really mean it? Is it not only that you are sorry for me? I – you are very kind – but I couldn’t bear for you only to be sorry for me!”

“My darling – what a way to put it! Sorry for you – my princess! No indeed! I shall be sorry for myself, if – but it’s not going to be that. Ella, you will try to care for me, won’t you?”

“I don’t need to try,” she answered gently. “It wouldn’t be worthy of you if any trying were needed. Oh, Philip – if you are sure you mean it – I have been so unhappy. I was so ashamed of – of caring for you – ”

“Ashamed,” Philip interrupted.

“Yes – for I thought you cared for – I thought at least you were going to marry – Ermine. That was how I misjudged Madelene. That was the great reason why I went away.”

Philip’s face cleared; a good many mists were dispersed by these words of Ella’s.

“But when you knew that wasn’t true – up to this morning even, why were you so strange and cold to me?” he asked.

“Because there was something you said about my being an obstacle or a difficulty – and of course I had no reason to think you cared for me, even if you did not for Ermine. Philip,” with a sudden thought, “if this is to be – you and me, I mean – will it make it easier for Madelene to marry Captain Omar?”

Philip nodded.

“She will think so, I have no doubt. Though really and truly there was nothing to prevent it. But your father since his losses has got morbid about your future, and Madelene has got morbid too in another way; self-sacrifice seemed the readiest means of cutting the knot, and so she has persuaded herself that it was her duty. But now – ”

He had drawn Ella’s pretty head close till it all but rested on his shoulder, suddenly she drew herself away and faced him with anxious eyes and tremulous mouth.

“Morbid about my future! How do you mean?” she exclaimed.

“What a fool I am,” Philip replied. “I forgot you didn’t understand. It was only, darling, that the money that should have been for you– Madelene and Ermine having very large fortunes from their mother – was lost several years ago. And there might have been difficulties, once your sisters were married and all that, in the way of their making any certain provision for you, so – ”

“So Madelene would have sacrificed herself for me?” Ella interrupted.

“In a sense, yes, I suppose I must say so. But also for the sake of your father’s peace of mind, and the fear of not being free to do her duty as a wife. She has mounted it all up most ingeniously. But now – Maddie will be so glad, Ella.”

Ella’s face was turned away however. Sir Philip grew uneasy.

“Ella,” he repeated, and with gentle force he turned her head, so that she had to look at him. She was crying.

Philip changed his tone.

“Ella,” he said gravely, “I don’t think this is fair upon me. Any one to see you, as you are now, would not believe that you were happy in what you have just promised. Are you regretting it already? – if so – ”

Ella melted at once.

“Oh, no, no! You know it is not that,” she said. “How could I? I have only just told you how I care for you. I care for you dreadfully, Philip. But it is just that that makes me so unhappy – so frightened that it is only, or mostly that you pity me. I never dreamt that I was poor. I wish, I do wish they had told me.”

“It was done with the best and purest motives,” Sir Philip answered quietly. “But, Ella, how can you say such things? The very breath of them spoils it all – all our pretty romance. Why, my darling, if you had been a great heiress like your sisters it would have lost all its charm; you would not have been what you are – my fairy princess, my Cinderella!”

And Ella looked up smiling again among her tears.

“Let us go and tell them all,” she said. “Madelene and my father. And oh, Philip, dear godmother! It was she after all – a great deal certainly was her doing. For if we hadn’t met first as we did, perhaps – who knows? – perhaps you would never have taken such a fancy to me?”

“Who knows?” said Philip teasingly. “There is one thing I must get out of granny, Ella. I shall insist on your being married in those little old slippers.”

The End.