She withdrew her hand, and again leaned over the bulwark. Her heart was softened towards her groom-brother, and for a moment it seemed to her that some wrong had been done. Why should the one be a marchioness and the other a groom? Then came the thought that now all was explained. Every peculiarity of the young man, every gift extraordinary of body, mind, or spirit, his strength, his beauty, his courage, and honesty, his simplicity, nobleness, and affection, yes, even what in _him_ was mere doggedness and presumption, all, everything explained itself to Florimel in the fact that the incomprehensible fisherman-groom, that talked like a parson, was the son of her father. She never thought of the woman that was his mother, and what share she might happen to have in the phenomenon --thought only of her father, and a little pitifully of the half-honour and more than half-disgrace infolding the very existence of her attendant. As usual her thoughts were confused. The one moment the poor fellow seemed to exist only on sufferance, having no right to be there at all, for as fine a fellow as he was; the next she thought how immeasurably he was indebted to the family of the Colonsays. Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption in assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship-- absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury at once got the upper hand. Was _she_ to be dictated to by a low-born, low-bred fellow like that--a fellow whose hands were harder than any leather, not with doing things for his amusement but actually with earning his daily bread--one that used to smell so of fish --on the ground of right too--and such a right as ought to exclude him for ever from her presence!--She turned to him again. “How long have you known this--this--painful--indeed I must confess to finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I presume you _do_ know it?” she said, coldly and searchingly. “My father confessed it on his death-bed.” “Confessed!” echoed Florimel’s pride, but she restrained her tongue. “It explains much,” she said, with a sort of judicial relief. “There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only say _explains_. It could never justify such behaviour as yours-- no, not if you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I daresay, to be made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt the discovery turned your head. Still I am at a loss to understand how you could imagine that sort of--of--that sort of thing gave you any right over me!” “Love has its rights, my lady,” said Malcolm.