“I beg you will not annoy me,” she said, muffling her anger in folds of distance, and again sought her book.
Malcolm looked at her for a moment, then turned his face towards the sea, and for another moment stood silent. Lady Florimel glanced up, but Malcolm was unaware of her movement. He lifted his hand, and looked at the half-crown gleaming on his palm; then, with a sudden poise of his body, and a sudden fierce action of his arm, he sent the coin, swift with his heart’s repudiation, across the sands into the tide. Ere it struck the water he had turned, and, with long stride but low-bent head, walked away. A pang shot to Lady Florimel’s heart.
“Malcolm!” she cried.
He turned instantly, came slowly back, and stood erect and silent before her.
She must say something. Her eye fell on the little parcel beside her, and she spoke the first thought that came.
“Will you take this?” she said, and offered him the handkerchief.
In a dazed way he put out his hand and took it, staring at it as if he did not know what it was.
“It’s some sair!” he said at length, with a motion of his hands as if to grasp his head between them. “Ye winna tak even the washin’ o’ a pocket-nepkin frae me, an’ ye wad gar me tak a haill half-croon frae yersel’! Mem, ye’re a gran’ leddy an’ a bonny; an ye hae turns aboot ye, gien ’twar but the set o’ yer heid, ’at micht gar an angel lat fa’ what he was carryin’, but afore I wad affront ane that wantit naething o’ me but gude will, I wad—I wad— raither be the fisher-lad that I am.”
A weak-kneed peroration, truly; but Malcolm was over-burdened at last. He laid the little parcel on the sand at her feet, almost reverentially, and again turned. But Lady Florimel spoke again.
“It is you who are affronting me now,” she said gently. “When a lady gives her handkerchief to a gentleman, it is commonly received as a very great favour indeed.”