The Master of Aberfeldie, Volume 1 (of 3)

CHAPTER IX.

THE PICNIC AT DUNSINANE.

Ambling on together and urging their horses, but at an easy pace, they soon drew near the object of their destination—Macbeth's famous castle of Dunsinane—whither the portly old butler, Mr. Tappleton, had preceded them in a wagonette, freighted with a luxurious luncheon; and, leaving their cattle in charge of the grooms, they began the ascent of that peak of the Sidlaw Hills which has been immortalised by Shakespeare.

With her riding-skirt thrown over her left arm, Eveline acted as their guide, and it may easily be supposed that she solicited the assistance of Cameron's arm, rather than that of Sir Paget Puddicombe, who had quite enough to do in assisting himself up a path which proved to him, as he said, 'rather a breather.'

It was a winding road cut in the rock, all the other sides being steep and difficult of access, and ere long, on reaching the flat and fertile summit, which commands a magnificent view of Strathmore and Blairgowrie, they found themselves within the strong rampart and deep fosse of what has once been a great military station of oval form, two hundred and ten feet long, by one hundred and thirty broad; and there they found Allan and Ruby Logan, who had preceded them, in full possession of the highest point, whence he was directing her attention to the chief features in the scenery, including, of course, Birnam Wood, fifteen miles distant, 'The Lang Man's Grave,' a great stone, under which Macbeth is said to lie—Ruby the while clinging to his arm in the exuberance of her delight, and carrying her riding-hat in her hand, as she was quite aware that her hair alone, in its wonderful luxuriance, made her very attractive, it being an unruly mass of rich, rippling golden amber in hue, shot with a redder and brighter tint at times when the sunlight struck it.

Under the splendour of a glorious noon, while a soft breeze rippled the verdant grass, the luncheon was proceeded with; fowls were dissected, pies investigated, champagne and hock, cool from the ice-pails, uncorked; all the requisites for a merry party were there, and yet in the party itself the chief element of high spirits was wanting, unless in the instance of Ruby Logan, who began to flatter herself that she had made—or nearly so—a conquest of the Master of Aberfeldie.

Oppressed with the tenor of the conversation that had so recently passed between herself and Mr. Holcroft, Olive Raymond was unusually silent, and, for her, distraite; and he, remembering the somewhat decided 'snub' she had so unexpectedly given him, was somewhat silent too, but sought consolation in champagne, while listening rather abstractedly to Sir Paget Puddicombe descanting on the traditions of the neighbourhood, as, in guide-book fashion, he knew all about the predictions of the weird sisters, the defeat and death of the usurper, and was full of the probability that the great dramatist had visited Dunsinane in person.

But Holcroft only quaffed his liquor, tugged his tawny moustache from time to time, and listened with an air of boredom, mingled with a quizzical expression of mistrust in his pale grey shifty eyes.

He had seen Macbeth on the stage, of course, and endured him more than once; but of the Thane of Cawdor he knew no more than what he had seen of him behind the footlights, and had cared to learn no more; and now it was with some genuine Cockney bewilderment, as he looked at the massive trenches around him, he began to think that 'some such fellow had existed then.'

Eveline and young Cameron, under Sir Paget's eye, were both reserved and triste, and no wine seemed capable of rousing animation in the lover. He had but one thought—the end of his leave was approaching, and when he left Dundargue he might never again see Eveline Graham. His heart was heavy.

When the trio were riding together, it was not that the eyes of Eveline disappointed him, or that she did not converse with him fully and earnestly; but he had detected in the manner of Sir Paget a provoking air of proprietary and confidence with regard to her that keenly piqued him, and could only have been born, he rightly conjectured, of some recent confidential arrangement with Lord Aberfeldie; but the young girl herself was sweetly unconscious of it all.

His responses had been brief, and he had ventured on few remarks, aware that little would escape unnoticed; thus he had been somewhat silent, while Sir Paget's easy-going old roadster ambled between the horses of himself and Eveline, going pace for pace, Sir Paget's head at each jerking forward in turtle fashion.

The trio still remained together when seated on the grass at luncheon, for neither of the gentlemen were disposed to quit the side of Eveline, whose colour might have been noticed to heighten at a question Sir Paget asked Cameron, of whom he certainly had a certain jealousy.

'Where does your property of Stratherroch lie, Mr. Cameron?'

'In Inverness-shire.'

'Ah!—mountainous, of course—good shooting for those who care for such things—not that I do. Is the land very remunerative now?'

'To others—not to me,' said Cameron, a little bitterly. 'A fair inheritance would be mine, Sir Paget, were Stratherroch unencumbered. My father was a wild fellow in his day—as what Highland laird is not? How some acres were mortgaged in succession, how others went in toto, heaven only knows—I don't. The estate is at nurse now; one day it will be mine again—but not for years; and I was too long foolishly sentimental about it.'

'How?' asked Sir Paget.

'I thought I would rather that the manor-house fell to ruins than pass, even temporarily, into the possession of strangers—of others than a Cameron; and now, by Jove! it has been for years occupied by one Jones Smithson, of Manchester.'

'Whose rental is clearing it?'

'Yes; and meantime I have little more in this world than my claymore and commission in the Black Watch,' said Cameron, with a somewhat hollow laugh and a swift, sad glance at Eveline; while Sir Paget smiled complacently as he thought of the balance at his bankers, and the fat, unfettered acres that lay round Slough-cum-Sloggit.

'I hope you do not find Dundargue dull, Sir Paget?' said Eveline, to change a conversation that rather oppressed her, as she was sharp enough to divine the thoughts of both men.

'Assuredly not, Miss Graham; how could it be so when I am enabled to renew my intimacy with one who can cast, as it were, bright sunshine in the most shady place?' he replied, with an unusual jerk of his head, a glance of eye, and accentuation of voice that annoyed her greatly, while Cameron's lip quivered under his moustache with mingled irritation and amusement.

And now at luncheon, inspired by a few bumpers of Clicquot, Sir Paget's glances at Eveline took occasionally the fashion of grotesque and languishing leers.

The wealthy baronet was older than she by a great many years, but they by no means warranted him being safe from a love, or passion rather, that might prove cruel as the grave—the passion of a middle-aged man for a very handsome young girl, whose parents were fully disposed to further his views and their own. It has been said that 'people for the life of them cannot be said to believe in the love pangs of a man over forty, or of a woman over twenty-nine,' but people may at times be wrong.

The present epoch was rather a trying one to Cameron and Eveline. As she had admitted to Allan, she knew that he loved her with a love unselfish and unspoken; and he felt intuitively that he was far from indifferent to her—knew it by the indescribable, untaught, and nameless signs by which a man learns instinctively that a woman loves him—in a first passion, a most intoxicating conviction; yet circumstances blended the happiness of Cameron with much that was alloy.

To avoid attentions or would-be tender speeches that might annoy poor Cameron, Eveline found herself compelled to talk intently to Sir Paget about local traditions and superstitions, and, thanks to her old nurse Nannie, she had—for a fashionable young lady of the present day—a curious répertoire of stories about wraiths and warnings, Daione Shi and other fairies, who were wont in pre-railway times to haunt the corries, cairns, and rocks.

'Have you no ghosts in or about Dundargue?' asked Sir Paget. 'A grand old mansion is scarcely complete without some such spectral visitor.'

'Surely that oubliette, whatever it is, of which I have heard more than once, must contain something of the kind?' said Holcroft, in a covert, but detestable kind of sneering tone, which he could adopt when his own interests were not concerned.

'In the gallery that leads to it I have heard of something strange,' said Allan.

'Oh, do tell us—what is seen there?' exclaimed Ruby Logan.

'Nothing—but old servants have a story to the effect that if anyone remains long there,' replied Allan, laughing, 'they are certain to have a strong sense of shadowy forms—intangible presences—hovering near them, and dare not turn their heads to see what they are.'

'We have no decided ghosts, thank Heaven!' said Eveline, laughing, and all unconscious of Holcroft's manner. 'There are none even in the palaces of Holyrood or Falkland, where terrible things have been done, so why should there be in poor old Dundargue? But a spot close by where we are now lunching is the alleged scene of a curious event—a very dark tradition in our family history.'

'Why recur to a story so absurd?' said Allan.

But she was pressed to explain herself, and with a shy, sweet smile in her eyes as she glanced from time to time at Evan Cameron, and a wonderfully musical modulation of voice, she told her tale, but not quite as old nurse Nannie had told it to her.

'The deep, rocky dell that lies between this and Dundargue, a few miles distant, was ever in past times what we find it now, covered with dense forest-trees, mingled with alders and silver birches so thickly as to exclude the rays of the sun, and it was said to be the haunt of a Urisk or mountain-goblin—a species of fiend which, Sir Walter Scott says, tradition avers to have had a figure half-man and half-goat.'

'In short, the Grecian satyr of classical antiquity,' said Allan, laughing.

'Be that as it may, the existence of this particular Urisk was never fairly proved until the days of one of our ancestors, Malise Graham of Dundargue, who fought at the battle of Ben Rinnes against the Reformers, and had in hiding in the "Priest's Hole," as it is still called, in the keep, a wandering Scottish Benedictine, known only as James of Jerusalem.

'Now, Malise Graham had an only daughter, Muriel, a girl possessed of that rare and soft beauty——'

'Which is still the inheritance of her family,' said Sir Paget, with a most portentous jerk of his head.

'Please not to interrupt me, or I shall stop,' exclaimed Eveline, with unconcealed annoyance. 'Muriel, in her walks near Dundargue, had made—unknown to her family—the acquaintance of a handsome young stranger of winning manners and prepossessing appearance.

'In the secluded life led in those days by a maiden of rank, such an event was of deep and peculiar interest; love speedily became the sequel, and in truth the object of it seemed to have been a very loveable fellow. Thus it was, with many bitter tears, that one evening she told him that her frequent absence from home had been remarked, and that she must meet him no more in that wooded hollow, especially as it was the haunt of goblins and other evil spirits.

'On hearing this, the handsome stranger laughed till all the dell seemed to re-echo, caressed her tenderly, and, after urging her on peril of her truth and soul to come to the trysting-place at least once again, left her in haste, as some one was seen to approach them.

'This proved to be James of Jerusalem, who is still remembered as the Black Priest of Dundargue. He wore nothing that was canonical; to have done so would have been as much as his life was worth in those days; thus he was clad in a sable Geneva cloak and doublet, with falling bands, and a calotte cap of black velvet with long lappets.

'He looked deadly pale, and was trembling in every limb, while he crossed himself again and again, and said, in a low and agitated voice,

'"Child Muriel, who is he that left you in such hot haste just now?"

'But Muriel,

"Crimson with shame, with terror mute,"

terror of her father, who was a stern and rigid man, remained silent.

'"Speak, unhappy girl!" urged the priest.

'"I know not his name," she replied, faintly.

'"Why?"

'"He conceals it from me."

'"And why?"

'"I know not; but oh, father, guide and counsel me, for I love him dearly, as he loves me."

'"You must meet him——"

'"Once again," she urged, piteously.

'"Never more, I meant to say—never more. But why say you once again?"

'"I have promised, on my soul's peril."

'"On your soul's peril indeed!" groaned the priest, in great tribulation; but, in defiance of all he could urge, Muriel, though she lived in an age of dark superstition, of omens and dread, inspired by her love, stole forth at the usual hour and entered the dell to meet her lover, for the last time, as it proved.

'Perhaps it was a prevision of this that made the wood seem so dark and gloomy, and even the knots and gnarled branches of the trees to look like those in the forest to Undine, fiendish faces and freakish limbs.

'Muriel knew in her heart that such meetings were wrong, unbecoming to her position, and sinful because she concealed them; but a spell seemed upon her, and she could not resist it. She took no heed of the future; she had but one thought, to be again with him.

'"And oh! why should this meeting be our last one?" she wailed in her heart, as he drew her to him, looking so handsome the while in his black doublet slashed with red, his ruff and scarlet plume.

'"My own!" said he, caressingly; "my own, I am aware that yonder dotard, fool and knave, the mass-monger, has been seeking to influence your mind against me, and to part us."

'"And here he stands prepared to do so!" exclaimed the black priest, as he suddenly appeared beside them, his eyes sparkling, but strangely with fear, rage, and triumph mingling in their expression. Muriel's lover clasped her to his breast, and wrapped his scarlet mantle round her. Then, while his eyes glared with a fire which fortunately she did not see, he exclaimed,

'"Stand back, canting liar—stand back, and begone!"

'"Child Muriel, come to me, in the name of God!" cried the priest, in sore agony; but she still clung to her lover, who, at the name uttered, cowered and shrank, as in the opera we see Mephistopheles cower and shrink before the cross-hilted swords of the soldiers.

'"Muriel, Muriel, you are mine!" exclaimed her lover, attempting to lift her from the ground.

'"Take heed, child, ere it is too late," urged the priest.

'"Dare you advise?" asked the stranger, mockingly; "does not one day judge another?"

'"Yes, and the last day judges all—even such as you!" cried the benedictine; then, making a sign of the cross in the air, he exclaimed, 'In nomine Patris et Filii; et Spiritus Sancti!'

'Scarcely had he done so when, under the power of his exorcism, the mantle, ruff, and plume of the pretended knight turned to bracken leaves, his goblin chain to wild holly, and he stood forth in all his deformity, a horror to the eye, half man and half goat, with the face of a baffled and exasperated fiend—the Urisk, or wood goblin; and, with a malignant yell, he vanished down the fast-darkening dingle!'

'And Muriel?' asked Holcroft, who had listened to all with such a smile as his face might be expected to wear.

'Was saved, of course,' said Eveline.

'And lived happy ever after?'

'Well—content at least, let us hope. She died a nun in the house of the English Benedictines at Paris—now the convent of the Val de Grace.'

'And has this legend a moral?' asked Holcroft, mockingly.

'Of course it has,' answered Allan, rather bluntly, yet with a quiet smile; 'it gave a good hint to the girls at Dundargue to beware of the attentions of unaccredited strangers.'

Holcroft's colour changed for a moment, and not unnoticed by Allan; for perhaps, reading between the lines, all this seemed somewhat a parable to the former, who tugged at his yellow moustaches in a way he did when irritated, heedless that pomade hongroise was disastrous to straw-coloured gloves.

The angry gleam that crossed the eyes of Holcroft was also noticed by Evan Cameron, who, for some reason as yet only known to himself, could not abide him; though certainly the latter did not cross him by any attentions to the penniless Eveline Graham.

Her little tradition came as a pleasant interlude to nearly all, for save Sir Paget—always confident and genial—no one seemed quite at ease, as a sense of cross-purposes brooded over them.

'Tappleton,' cried Allan to the butler, 'another glass of champagne all round; and then to be off,' he added, swinging Olive adroitly into her saddle, and thus, as he thought, anticipating Holcroft, though the latter, remembering keenly his recent 'snub,' had no intention of offering his services just then.

Allan, fearing that he had gone rather too far with Ruby Logan in attempting to pique his cousin, now resolved to leave that young lady to the care of anyone else in their homeward ride, much to her surprise and disappointment, and took his place by the side of Olive, in obedience to a half-inviting glance she gave him.

He and his sister were, of course, familiar since childhood with the ruins of Dunsinane and all their surroundings; but to two or three of the party, as they turned to depart, and saw the vast ramparts reddened by the setting sun, there came to memory the scene they had so often witnessed on the stage—Malcolm's army with the boughs of Birnam in their helmets, the 'alarms and excursions,' the fierce and protracted melo-dramatic combat, the downfall of Macbeth beneath the sword of Macduff, and the cries of 'Hail, King of Scotland—King of Scotland, hail!'

CHAPTER X.

THE GOLDEN BANGLE.

A writer says 'there is the beauty of youth, and surely there is the beauty of love, too,' and the latter certainly shone in the soft eyes of Eveline Graham as she caracoled her horse in the homeward ride by the side of young Cameron, and her eyes, which were ever the mystery of that face, had now their sweetest smiles for him. She saw how his face was lighted up, and was aware how his voice softened when he addressed her as it softened to no other woman; and yet, withal, though no word of love had passed between these two, right well did they know the secret of each other's hearts; but poverty fettered his tongue, and her parents' ambition and known wishes nearly repressed all hope in the heart of Eveline.

With all her regard for her father she had a fear of him, and still more so of her mother. All their prejudices were in favour of wealth; but Evan Cameron appeared to her altogether so dear and irresistible that she, poor girl, could not imagine anyone being proof against him, and with this conviction, and the knowledge that Allan loved him, she permitted herself occasionally to live in a kind of fool's paradise, wherein Sir Paget Puddicombe had no part.

When her mother was not present, she played to Evan Cameron, and sang his favourite songs; she showed him her drawings for hints and suggestions, discussed her favourite books, and let him hang over her chair; and at such times, though nothing of love was said, there was a subtle tenderness in Cameron's eye and voice that made her impulsive heart quicken, as no man's eye or voice had ever done before, and young though she was, Eveline had heard more than one declaration of love.

And now for a time he had the joy of having her all to himself, as they contrived to distance the rest of their party.

But what availed it? Evan knew that, if once he passed beyond what appeared to be the merest friendship, his visit to Dundargue might come to a speedy end, and its hospitality could never be extended to him again.

To Evan, Eveline Graham proved, if we may say so, a kind of revelation after the rough life he had led of late years in India—something from another world, as it were—and thus much of adoration mingled with his love for her. If dying could have served Eveline, there and then would Evan Cameron have died for her!

Whether such enthusiastic passion might last it was impossible to say, but time may show.

We have referred to the quiet confidence of Sir Paget Puddicombe—a confidence borne of his consciousness of wealth and assured position. However, he was sharp enough to see to some extent how Cameron was attracted by Eveline, and to feel how the latter preferred the young subaltern's society to his own; but in a very short time he knew that the 'detrimental,' as Lady Aberfeldie called him, would be again with his regiment, the Black Watch, perhaps under orders for foreign service; then he would have the course all to himself, and doubted not, as Holcroft would have said, 'to win in a canter.'

Cameron thought the proverb right about there being no fool like an old one; but then, every old fool had not Sir Paget's bank-book, and the preference and influence of parents to back up his folly. But with a handsome figure, and his V.C., how much more was Cameron like the object of a young girl's eye than Sir Paget could ever be!

'It was in the Kurram Pass, in Afghanistan, that you gained the Victoria Cross, Mr. Cameron?' said Eveline, breaking a pause in the conversation, and shortening her reins, while he checked the pace of his horse, and replied, with a pleased smile,

'Yes; but how do you know that, Miss Graham—from your brother, the Master?'

'No.'

'I have never spoken of it.'

'I read it in the Army List,' replied Eveline, candidly, and to hear her say so made the bronze cross of more value to him than the Garter would have been.

She had read it, and committed the episode to heart too—how 'the Queen had been graciously pleased to signify her intention of conferring the decoration of the Victoria Cross' on Lieutenant Evan Cameron, of the —th Foot, and now of the Black Watch, for a daring act of bravery on a date given, when the retreating forces were attacked by Afghans in great strength, the latter having pushed forward upon the position at daybreak, and Lieutenant Cameron, accompanied by only five soldiers, captured a nine-pounder gun, shooting down or bayonetting all the gunners, and thus preventing the destructive use of the piece, which he brought off with the loss of one man, but in the conflict received three severe tulwar wounds.

Cameron was an enthusiast in his profession, and with outwardly the air of a well-bred man of the world, and thoroughly so that of a young Line officer, he had in his nature a deep sentiment of nationality, of clanship, and Highland romance, with an intense pride in his regiment. He had entertained Eveline often with sketches, anecdotes, and traditions of the Black Watch, but of himself and his V.C., of course, he never spoke.

'What a proud moment it must have been for you, when you knew that you had won the cross!' said the girl, with a flush on her soft cheek.

Stirred in his soul by the interest she took in him, the great secret of his heart was trembling on his lips, but he repressed it, and a shadow came into his face and a wistfulness into his eyes.

'Prouder would I have been, Miss Graham,' said he, 'if—if—I——

'What?'

'I had then been known even by name to you?' he replied, in a low voice, and with a manner there was no mistaking.

Nothing more was said then; yet they both felt, while eye met eye, that their first words of love had been spoken.

More might, perhaps, have passed, as the subject could easily have been enlarged on; but just then they were abruptly joined by Allan, who came up at a trot and reined in his horse sharply by their side, with a dark expression on his face, which Eveline thought augured ill for his success with Olive, whom he had suddenly left in the care of Mr. Hawke Holcroft.

After quitting the ruins, as Allan rode on by his cousin's side, his memory had gone back to the days when she was a girl of some twelve years or so—a bright-eyed hoyden, who could fish, even take a shot from his gun, climb trees, eat apples right off the branch, play marbles with him, grasp a trout darting in the burn under the long yellow broom or purple brambles, and was his companion in many a ramble and out-door frolic; and now inspired by that memory, the scenery and beauty of the evening, he felt himself disposed to treat with considerable tenderness the lovely girl he hoped to make yet his own.

On the other hand, Olive cared little to please him, and for a time she almost repelled, and yet by doing so she greatly lured and attracted him.

The friendship of Allan and Olive was a source of some perplexity, if not amusement, to Eveline Graham, but of irritation to her mother, to whom they never seemed to act as lovers at all, unless in 'the Scots fashion' of pouting and quarrelling.

To the eyes of all interested in the matter, it did not seem that she cared for him in the least. She never altered a plan or hastened her pace to meet him, or go where he might chance to be—in the library, on the terrace smoking, or in any of the quaint corridors that traversed the old house. She never adopted a dress, a ribbon, or ornament to please his eye, though she sometimes did, coquettishly, he thought, to flatter Hawke Holcroft; and even now, as they were slowly traversing the dark, woody dell of the legend—the Coire-nan-Uriskin—she was humming, half in warning, half in waggery, Tennyson's song:

'She can both false and friendly be,
                    Beware! beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!'

And yet, as she glanced at her soldierly cousin from time to time under her long, dark lashes, she thought that, though he looked stately in the kilt, he seldom looked better than now when in riding costume, with the smartest of light grey cover coats.

The girl's mind vibrated curiously between her over-sensitive pride, her wishes, her doubts, and half convictions.

If pique at her position in the family with Allan had made her accept, with a certain degree of equanimity, the attentions of Holcroft, she now began to feel a pleasure that she had not more fully encouraged them.

At such moments as the present Allan felt that this fair girl, who had ever been his friend—cherished as a sister—this sweet cousin with the violet eyes and rich brown hair—was dear to him with a tenderness to which he could scarcely give a name, unless it were purest love; and she might have read it in his eyes, intense and strong, but for that spirit of wilfulness which led her to temporise—was it to tyrannise?—or play with it and him.

But may a girl really love a man till she is certain of being loved in return? For Allan, baffled by her manner, had said nothing very pointed as yet, as if he based all their future on her father's will; and times there were when in pique he dropped his way of treating her half playfully, half deferentially, and became absolutely cold.

In fact, the thoughts of Olive, apart from her jealous pride, were somewhat difficult to analyse; but, as yet, she deemed that she could only regard him with a kind of sisterly attention; while he, when not irritated by the presence of Holcroft, would say to Eveline,

'When we are alone, and can slip back into our old memories, I shall soon teach her to love me.'

'But meantime,' replied his sister, 'you are the most tiresome couple in the world.'

'I wish Mr. Holcroft or some one else would join us,' said Olive, looking round in her saddle.

'Why, it is always Mr. Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan.

'You are so provokingly silent. For more than a mile you have not once spoken to me. It is stupid to be so triste! Surely there is some one else whose society you prefer, or with whom you would be more lively?'

'Olive!' said he, on hearing this blunt and pointed remark—both curiously so for her. 'You are surely not jealous of anyone?' he added.

'Jealous!' echoed the girl, with a strange but affected kind of lazy scorn; 'why should I be so, and of whom?'

'Well may you ask, of whom could you be so?' replied Allan, pointedly—so much so that she coloured; 'though I, of course, matter little to you.'

'Allan, you are very wrong to say so,' said the girl, softly.

'Then I am not quite indifferent to you?' urged Allan, impulsively now; 'you do care for me a little?'

'Certainly—a good deal, if it is any satisfaction to you; but there—don't touch my bridle hand, or you will make my horse shy. How can you be so tiresome!'

Allan sighed, and yet he regarded her, in her loveliness and insouciance, with an expression just then of mingled amusement, annoyance, and regard in his dark hazel eyes.

With all the love that had been growing in his heart for Olive, he had been in no hurry to urge his suit, for, though impetuous by nature, he could be reserved and cautious enough at times; but now his heart flew to his head, and he said, bluntly,

'Dearest Olive, will you promise to love me—to marry me?'

'Why require any promise about the matter?' she replied, as all her wilfulness returned; 'has not my father promised for me—bequeathed me to you like a bale of goods, or condemned me to poverty!' she added, with a bitter laugh on her lips that curled with anger. 'I wonder that he did not order that I was to be locked up and fed on bread and water till I gave my consent to marry you, or that I was to be dropped into that oubliette which exists somewhere in Dundargue.'

'Cousin Olive,' said he, reproachfully, 'why this pride and doubt of my purpose? You are as cruel as you are beautiful.'

'This is worse than anything you have ever said to me,' she cried, with angry laughter still.

'Worse?'

'Yes, an attempt at gross straightforward compliment, as if I was a girl at a railway buffet.'

'Don't you like to be complimented?'

'By some people—yes,' was the petulant reply.

'All the girls I have ever known have liked pretty, flattering speeches.'

'But I am different, I hope, from most of the girls you have known.'

'By Jove you are!' replied the Master, twisting his moustache till he made himself wince; 'but will I never be more to you than I am now?'

'Never more than my cousin—what would you desire to be? But here comes Mr. Holcroft, to whom I certainly made no sign,' she added, with some annoyance, as she thought of what had so lately passed between them; and then, so variable was her emotion, that she laughed as she thought—'Two proposals in one day, and both made in the saddle too—how droll!'

Allan misinterpreted her silent laugh as a welcome to Holcroft, and shrank from his own angry fears—they were not convictions yet—lest he should adopt that meanest passion of the whole category—jealousy without a just cause—jealousy of one inferior to him in social position, and certainly in personal attractions.

When reduced to act cavalier to Miss Ruby Logan, who certainly did not want him, Hawke Holcroft had looked darkly after the cousins as they rode off together, and thought that nothing short of death would prevent him from accomplishing the object he had now in view ere he left Dundargue.

From something in the manner of the cousins, he—a close observer—augured that Allan had not made his 'innings' with the heiress, yet he cantered up to Allan's side, and said, smilingly to Olive,

'May I smoke, Miss Raymond? The road is quite lonely, and if not disagreeable to you——'

'Certainly,' said she, curtly.

'And I shall join you,' added Allan. 'Can you oblige me with a light, Holcroft?'

Cigars were selected, and Holcroft handed his silver matchbox to Allan, who, with a leap of his heart, though without changing colour or a muscle of his dark and sunburned face, saw on his rival's wrist his own gift sent from Delhi, the gold bangle, which Olive had, perhaps, for the time forgotten, and on which was her own name in raised Roman letters.

He had seen Holcroft in rather close proximity to her during the most of the day, and if piqued thereat, more than ever was he piqued and startled now, and abruptly wheeling round his horse, he muttered some excuse and joined his sister and his friend Cameron, while the words of the song came ominously back to memory—

'Trust her not, she is fooling thee.'

The bangle! He blushed to think of it, and shrank as yet from speaking of it, even to Eveline, for he was altogether unaware of under what circumstances Holcroft came to possess it, or the effort Olive had made to procure its return without success, but imagination and jealousy now did much to fill his heart with secret fury.

Would the future hold love or hatred for these two cousins? It seemed just then difficult to say.

Like Eveline, he thought the gift of the photo a trifle when compared with this, yet the photo was eventually to prove the most serious and troublesome gift of the two.

Wounded self-esteem, disquiet, and intense mortification reigned supreme in the mind of the somewhat proud young Master of Aberfeldie; but he felt himself necessitated to dissemble. Hawke Holcroft was his father's guest, the son of his father's oldest and most valued friend; and while at Dundargue it would be necessary to treat him with courtesy, though Allan never doubted that he was a 'leg,' and resolved that his courtesy would be blended with watchfulness, if—bitter thought—Olive was now worth watching over!

Unprepared for such a crisis or catastrophe as the discovery of the bangle, and ignorant that Allan had made it, when a carpet-dance took place that evening at Dundargue, though Olive was arrayed in one of her most becoming toilettes for him, and him alone, he never even addressed her or looked near her; and, black though his brow, he entirely occupied himself with Ruby Logan; and, provoked by this, Olive again endured the attention of Holcroft, and thought to play—or affect to play—with them both.

In this, however, the little scheme was doomed to be disappointed by the events of the following day.

'I shall quit Dundargue for London, or give up my leave and go back to the regiment, and never look upon her fair, false face again till I have schooled myself into merely regarding her with a brotherly—well, say cousinly—eye!' thought Allan, with great bitterness of spirit.

But how about that absurd will and the settlement of the money?

CHAPTER XI.

EVELINE'S SUITOR.

'Verily,' says a writer, 'we miss our opportunities, and live our lives as if they were all to come twice over; not as if each passing sunset brought us nearer that day when the pulse must cease to beat, and the heart with all its emotions must be stilled for ever.'

Olive was now experiencing the truth of this to a certain extent.

She had been—in spite of herself—touched by Allan's earnestness, and on retiring to her room her first act was to have his neglected gift—the little silver idol—the bequest of the grateful subadar—duly installed on a pretty Swiss bracket, and next morning she determined to discover why his manner, after their return from Dunsinane, had been so marked and disagreeable to her, even if she should take the initiative, and have to recur to the conversation which ended so abruptly on the preceding evening.

She entered the breakfast-room full of the subject, and dressed—so far as lace and blue ribbons went—in a most attractive and coquettish morning costume; but Allan was not there—he was at the stables, no doubt, or at the kennel. How tiresome men were, she thought.

'Good morning, Olive darling! how charming you look—I must positively give you a kiss!' exclaimed the not usually effusive Lady Aberfeldie, touching the girl's cheek with her lips.

The last to appear at the breakfast-table was her husband, who entered with a note in his hand, and an expression of surprise on his face.

'Here is a strange thing, Eveline,' said he to Lady Aberfeldie. 'Tappleton has just brought me this note from Allan——'

'From Allan!' exclaimed one or two voices.

'Stating that he would leave by dawn this morning to take the train for the south, and might be absent some time, and this without further explanation.'

'How odd—how unlike him!' exclaimed Lady Aberfeldie. 'Do you know of any business engagement or invitation he had?'

'No—I know of nothing.'

'Or you, Olive—or you, Mr. Cameron?'

All professed ignorance, and the matter was canvassed by the family circle in vain.

'It will be explained, of course. Allan never acts without reason,' said his father, addressing himself to the morning meal.

'Allan gone—how odd—how unaccountable!' was the thought of Olive, whose heart rather reproached her; and now, for a little time, she missed the handsome cousin whom she had so teased, worried, and mortified; and she began to dread that he had resigned his leave of absence, and gone abruptly to rejoin his regiment.

'Olive,' said Lady Aberfeldie, 'do go on with your breakfast.'

'Oh, auntie, I have finished.'

'Finished!—child, you have taken nothing: Tappleton will get you a little grouse-pie.'

'Oh, no—thanks,' replied Olive, and, rising from the table, she quitted the room. The eyes of her aunt and Holcroft followed her, as each had thoughts of their own.

The love the latter professed for her was destitute of jealousy, but was not without fear; and his face just then would have been a picture had anyone cared to study it.

There might have been read satisfaction that by Allan's unexpected departure he had the field all to himself; annoyance, for the Dundargue despatch-box often brought him, and on this morning had done so, epistles in blue envelopes, which he cared not to receive; greed, as he thought of the prize that might yet be his; and hot impatience to find it in his grasp; and thus, while affecting to listen to Lord Aberfeldie, who was describing to him and Sir Paget a cover they were to shoot over that day, his mind was revolving how he might succeed in entrapping Olive Raymond into some kind of Scotch marriage (whatever that was) in fun, or jest, and then declare it was a true and solemn ceremony. He thought he had heard of such things being tried and done, but was not quite certain.

However, he took fresh courage now that he would have her all to himself, and thought, with Bulwer, that 'thrones and bread man wins by the aid of others. Fame and woman's heart he can only gain through himself.'

Not that he cared much for fame or woman's heart either; but he could mightily appreciate her fortune.

Whatever was the secret thought of Olive about the sudden and unexpected departure of Allan, she felt some renewal of her pique, but of a different kind, when told by Eveline of the magnificent suite of Maltese ornaments he had brought home.

'For whom?' she asked.

'You, of course.'

'Then he has never offered them for my acceptance.'

'Think of your manner to him, Olive.'

'They are for Ruby Logan more likely. He has met Ruby before, we all know.'

'I should not be surprised if they become a gift to Ruby now,' replied Eveline, who was quietly provoked by Olive's treatment of her brother; 'though, when he got these jewels at Malta, I question if he knew of that yellow-haired damsel's existence.'

And now, greatly to the vexation of Eveline, and the amusement perhaps of Olive, the latter's bangle remained on the wrist of the enterprising Mr. Holcroft, though none of them knew the mischief that the discovery of it had wrought in the mind of Allan Graham; but in the latter's absence poor little Eveline was doomed to have—unsupported by his presence and advice—some heavy trouble of her own.

Lord and Lady Aberfeldie were in consultation in the latter's boudoir, a little, old-fashioned room of octagonal shape, the panelled walls of which were hung with rich silk—a sanctum long sacred to the Chatelaines of Dundargue, and the whole appurtenances of which had that combined air of ease, repose, and grandeur peculiar to the furniture of an ancient and long-descended race.

Kelpie—a currish-looking terrier, but her ladyship's pet—had got his morning repast of cream and macaroons from her own white hands, and, this important duty over, she and her husband began to converse on family matters.

Lady Aberfeldie amid these, indulged in some angry surmises as to how long they were 'to have the society of Mr. Holcroft.'

'I cannot say that I care much personally for Hawke Holcroft,' replied her husband; 'but his father, as you know, saved my life at Alma, and won therefore the V.C. I have told you, Eveline, I think, that when Colin Campbell's Highland brigade advanced in echelon of regiments along the Kourgané Hill, the Black Watch, of course, led the way, and, just about the time the Russian Kazan column broke, no particular sound had followed our firing but the yells of their wounded ringing through the smoke. With the next volley we heard a rattling sound, as our bullets fell like hail upon the tin-kettles they carried outside their knapsacks, as all the great grey-coated blocks of infantry were right about face now, in full retreat. It was just then, as our calvary and guns swept after them in pursuit, that I fell wounded, and would have been bayoneted on the spot by four Russians, who lay among some caper bushes shamming death, had not old Major Holcroft cut them down like ninepins, and protected me till some of our fellows returned. I cannot forget all that, you know.'

Lady Aberfeldie, who had heard all this fifty times at least before, sighed with impatience, and said,

'His son certainly appears to have some attraction for Olive; and what would you think if Allan, repelled by her, was actually to fall in love with Ruby Logan and her amber locks? What a complication that might be.'

'Don't suggest such a thing for a moment. I hope he will prove himself every way worthy of one who has so long occupied, like Eveline, the place of a daughter in our hearts.'

'Talking of Eveline, it is high time she was informed of Sir Paget's views and wishes; and while on the subject may I ask,' she added, with some asperity of tone, 'how long Mr. Cameron is to be here?'

'A week yet, and then he must report himself at head-quarters.'

'A whole week?' muttered lady Aberfeldie, who was far from inhospitable when she approved of the objects to whom she thought hospitality should be extended.

'I do like Stratherroch. He is like his father, old Angus of the Cameron Highlanders, yet not so lively; for Angus was the king of good fellows, and used to keep the mess-table in a roar.'

'Yet I would his son were with the regiment again, or anywhere else but here.'

'I think he admires Eveline.'

'I am certain of it, and the sooner their intimacy terminates the better. Eveline and Strath—good heavens!' exclaimed Lady Aberfeldie, with her white jewelled hands uplifted, 'never again must their names be mingled, even in our family circle, especially under pending circumstances.'

'They do seem intimate,' said the peer, moodily; 'but have not at least progressed so far as the use of Christian names.'

'That would be intolerable:' and, ringing the bell, Lady Aberfeldie desired a servant to summon her daughter, who appeared in a very coquettish and becoming lawn-tennis costume, for a game on the lawn, where the courts were already set and some friends awaited.

She entered with a bright smile, which soon died away, for she read an expression in the faces of her parents, especially that of her mother, which seemed to her sensitive heart prophetic of evil.

If it be true, as Madame be Stael asserts, that 'love occupies the whole life of a woman,' it need not be a matter of surprise that the sex can discover each other's love secrets with ease; thus, though Lady Aberfeldie fully suspected what filled the heart of her daughter—so closely had she watched her—she was somewhat pitiless now.

With all her queenly manner and soft grace, her unexceptional toilettes and suavity of manner, Lady Aberfeldie had a will of iron, yea, of adamant in some things, and her daughter's marriage with Sir Paget was one of them.

She was told plainly and bluntly that he had proposed for her hand; had asked permission to address her on the subject; had offered magnificent—yea, princely settlements; and it was expected the marriage would take place, when the family returned to London, next season.

The long dreaded cloud had burst upon her at last!

She grew white as a lily on hearing this sentence, clung to a console table for support, and then burst into a torrent of tears, while her father drew her tenderly towards him.

'Be calm, child,' said he, 'we shall give you plenty of time to think about it; marriage is a serious thing at all times.'

Eveline thought it was doubly serious with such a bridegroom, but could only sob, while her mother eyed her gloomily, as she thought this excessive grief and repugnance augured worse for her scheme than indignation or defiance would have done; but poor Eveline was all softness and gentleness.

'What folly is this?' she asked.

'I am your only daughter, mamma,' urged Eveline.

'Hence it is your first duty to your family, to yourself, and the world to make an early, eligible, and wealthy marriage. Every season brings many such to pass in our own circle.'

'Are we so poor, mamma?'

'We are not rich, and know not what may happen.'

Did Lady Aberfeldie speak prophetically? If so, it was an utterance made unawares.

'Eveline darling,' said her father, 'you were content enough with the attentions of Sir Paget, and to accept even his presents in London, a season or two ago.'

'I was but a girl then fresh from school, and—and joined other girls in laughing at my having an old lover. I—I knew no better,' she continued, sobbing.

'And had not met Cameron of Stratherroch!' said her mother through her set teeth, and quite forgetting the rôle she had so recently suggested.

'No,' thought Eveline, 'and had not learned to love him.' She shivered as if she had been struck when her mother spoke, and then said, with all the firmness she could assume.

'You must mistake us in some way, mamma. Mr. Cameron has never addressed a word to me that he might not have addressed to yourself.'

'I am glad of it—then I shall taunt you with his name no more,' said her mother, kissing her forehead. 'People generally, but young ladies especially, should never indulge in strong emotions.'

'Perhaps, mamma; but why?'

'They age the face so much by lining it.'

Eveline covered with her handkerchief her whole sweet face, which was quivering with emotion now. She felt that the romance of her young girl's life was quite passing from her, and that, even if she escaped a marriage with Sir Paget, she must think of Evan Cameron and his silent love no more!

'Think of Sir Paget's princely settlements,' said Lord Aberfeldie. 'But how difficult it is,' he added, as if to himself, 'to imbue a woman—a pretty girl more than all—with any idea of the seriousness of pounds, shillings, and pence! To her they are as the sands upon the seashore, unless she has known want.'

'Do reflect on all this, Eveline,' urged her mother.

'I cannot; and why should I do so?'

'Because most of the great evils of life might be avoided if we would only take time to reflect.'

'In a matter like this, mamma,' said Eveline, taking courage from her desperation, and hoping by temporising to gain, at least, time, 'reflection might lead to madness. Can wealth or princely settlements make up for that disparity of years which will excite ridicule in all the girls who know me, and cover me with contempt as a mean, sordid, and covetous creature in marrying a man I do not and can never love, and who cannot really care for me, whatever he may think or say? So, so, I am to be taken to market, as it were, and sold to the best advantage. That is the plain English of it!'

'Eveline, how can you adopt a tone so little like you?' said her mother, reproachfully. 'Sir Paget will be sure to address you on this subject, as he has your papa's permission, and, when he does so, be sure that you comport yourself as becomes my daughter,' she added, rather haughtily, and rather ignoring her husband in the matter. 'But go; I hear Olive and Miss Logan calling for you.'

Eveline hurried away, bathed her eyes, and then, hat in hand, descended from the terrace to the sunny lawn, where Olive, Ruby, and other girls were flitting about, radiant with smiles and in gaily-coloured costumes, with saucy and bewitching hats, talking and laughing merrily; but the girl felt as one in a dream, a nightmare. A dark cloud seemed to envelop her, amid which she heard the voices of her friends, and it may be imagined with what emotions in her breast she saw in the tennis-court opposite her, Cameron, looking so handsome in a kind of athlete's flannel dress, and the rotund figure of Sir Paget in a tight morning coat, out of the neck of which his round, shining head was jerked ever and anon in the turtle fashion we have described.

Never while she lived, Eveline thought, should she forget the horror she had of that game of lawn-tennis; the part she had to act in it under a glorious sunshine, and the desire she had for the seclusion of her own room, for by contrast with the chaos in her own heart the whole bright scene became a species of grim phantasmagoria.

Her heart seemed full of tears; her naturally buoyant and happy spirit was crushed. She dared hardly trust herself to address even Cameron, who saw, with a lover's instinct, that something, he knew not what (unless with reference to Sir Paget), had gone decidedly wrong.

We have already adverted to the strong passion an elderly swain like Sir Paget may conceive for a young girl; and, encouraged by her parents' permission, he was now giving full swing to it, as he watched her slender, lithe, and willowy figure in the various postures incident to the game, which tested his powers of action severely, and during a pause in it he approached her with a smile rippling on his rubicund old face, and displaying a set of teeth that were first-rate as to cost and quality.

'My dear Miss Graham,' he said, with a most insinuating jerk of his head, 'why do you avoid me?'

'I am not aware that I avoid you; I hope I don't do so,' replied Eveline, colouring with annoyance, and at the conviction that she certainly had done so. Then, as a kind of hunted feeling came over her, she added; 'but I do not think, Sir Paget, that I am bound to account to you for all I do.'

'Of course not,' said he, with a bow, and Eveline coloured more deeply at the ungraciousness of her own speech; 'of course not, my dear young lady—as yet,' he added, under his breath.

At last she pleaded illness, fatigue, and headache, threw down her hat, and fairly fled to her own room.

CHAPTER XII.

A REVELATION TO HOLCROFT.

The sudden, unexpected, and unexplained departure of Allan Graham from Dundargue (a reason for which will be given in due time), if it puzzled his family, still more puzzled and piqued Olive, especially after what passed between them on their homeward ride. But then, says Lefanu,—'Women are so enigmatical; some in everything—all in matters of the heart.'

The monetary matters of Mr. Hawke Holcroft were approaching a species of crisis now, and he was daily getting orange-coloured missives and messages 'wired' in mysterious terms from jockeys, bookmakers, and other horsey folks that added to his tribulation, for things seemed to be going wrong with him, and he felt that now or never must he attempt to secure the heiress, who, he thought, was only waiting to be carried off.

Even loo and écarté in the evening with such pigeon-like players as Sir Paget were beginning to fail as resources.

'Odd fellow in his way,' remarked the baronet to Cameron. 'A trifle too lucky at cards for my taste.'

'Or mine,' said Cameron, grimly.

'Turns up the king too often after the early hours of the morning.'

Yet when night came again and the small hours of the morning, the somewhat simple M.P. for Slough-cum-Sloggit was again a heavy loser to Holcroft.

'He has some secret about him,' said the former.

'Most men have some secret which they generally keep to themselves,' replied Cameron.

'Secrets certainly, which they seldom tell to their wives or sweethearts,' said the baronet, laughing.

We have said that Olive had a secret thought that might prove somewhat fatal to Allan's success with her, a mistaken idea that Holcroft loved her—loved her for herself—and despite the tenor of her father's will; while Allan might love her because he knew the value of its tenor to himself.

And, now that the latter was so unaccountably absent, Holcroft was full of confidence, and, the ice having once been broken, thought it would be easy to go back to where he had left off on the ride home from Dunsinane.

In his own selfish way he loved her; but then she was beautiful. Loved her! 'Oh, poverty of language, that we must so often use the word love!' exclaims a writer.

It was some days before his inevitable departure from Dundargue (and not an hour too soon for that), when he and Olive were somewhat earlier, and before anyone else, in the breakfast-room, and the notes of Ronald Gair's pipes, playing his morning reveille, 'The Black Watch,' a slow and wailing air, were dying away on the terrace outside.

Holcroft's face looked worn and haggard—more freckled, and the eyes more than usually shifty in their expression. He had received some letters and telegrams the evening before that upset him so much that he failed even to win at loo or écarté, and the live-long night he had been heard by Cameron pacing to and fro, as if unable to rest.

Olive was struck by his pallid appearance.

They exchanged 'Good-mornings,' and then a few minutes' silence ensued.

'We may have rain soon.' was the not very original remark of Holcroft.

'The sky looks very like it. Rain always comes when the mist is where we see it now, on yonder low spur of the Sidlaw Hills,' replied Olive.

She was kneeling on a bearskin, beside the great staghounds, Shiuloch and Bran, with her little white hands outspread before the fire for warmth; and a charming picture she made, in her morning costume, fresh and lovely as a fairy, with the dogs in the foreground, and the great carved stone arch of the baronial chimney-piece for a frame.

Hawke Holcroft turned from the window and came to her side, though curiously enough the hazel eyes of the hounds glistened, and they showed their teeth at him, suggestive of kicks secretly administered.

'We are down earlier than usual this morning,' said she.

'All the better.'

'Why?'

'I want so particularly to talk to you,' said he, with all the softness he could assume.

'And I with you,' said Olive, with a frankness that was a curious mistake. 'You leave us soon, I believe?'

'Yes.'

'For London?'

'For London,' he replied, mechanically, as it were.

'I thought you came to stay out the grouse-shooting?'

'Till the tenth of December! I have not been asked,' he replied, gnawing his yellow moustache; and then, after a pause, added, 'would you wish that I stayed?'

'Certainly, if you are enjoying yourself,' was the girl's frank but—after what he had urged some time ago—rather rash response.

His eyes sparkled—he drew nearer.

'Miss Raymond—Olive!' he exclaimed, but paused, as, at that moment, Lady Aberfeldie swept into the room; 'on the terrace—the terrace after breakfast,' he whispered, hurriedly, and then turned to receive his hostess's morning greeting, which was so frigid that he feared she had overheard him call her niece by her Christian name.

Holcroft was rather abstracted at breakfast; thus Ruby Logan, who had been watching him, said,

'I would not, if I were you, put more sugar on the devilled turkey; it won't improve it.'

'Forgot it was not salt; thanks, Miss Logan,' stammered Holcroft.

Now, whether the charming Olive was inspired by coquetry, curiosity, caprice, or a strange desire to play with fire, we know not; but when breakfast was over she laid down a novel she had been reading, or affecting to read, at intervals during the meal, and, assuming her garden hat, with all the laces and ribbons of her bright morning dress fluttering about her, while everyone else at table was deep in his or her letters and papers, went forth upon—the terrace!

Now Mr. Hawke Holcroft never read novels or anything else unless for a purpose. He glanced at the page which Olive had left open (the work was 'Miss Forrester') and the passage struck him as most apropos to himself:

'I never pretended to goodness. I have certain views for myself. I never pretended to fooling. I am clever. What stands between me and my ambition I will remove; of whatever can administer to it I will avail myself. Beyond this, it seems to me, I am as good as other people.'

'Hawke, my boy, yourself to a hair!' thought he, as he quietly sought the terrace, not by the French window, as Olive had done, but by going through a corridor and the entrance hall.

As coolly as if she had no prevision of what he was sure to urge, Olive, who wore a waggish yet shy expression under her garden hat, and who kept her hands deep in the pockets of her morning dress, said,

'What have you to say to me here that you could not have said in the vicinity of the tea-urn?'

'All that I have to say may be said in three words.'

'Three! say it then.'

'I love you; a confession that has hovered on my timid lips many a time.'

'I cannot listen to this, and I wish to have back my bangle. If Allan were to see it—good heavens!'

'I have said that it shall be buried with me. Do give me some hope.'

'Of what; permission to retain the bangle?'

'No; that you may one day love me.'

'I cannot.'

'Say rather that you will not.'

Barring, in an angle of the terrace, her attempts to leave him, he continued, in an earnestness that was born of monetary pressure and desperate hope, to plead his passion.

'I am greatly honoured,' replied the girl, growing cold as he waxed warm, and glancing nervously at the windows of the mansion; 'but I am very sorry——'

'That you don't love me.'

'Yes.'

'But you may in time. Oh, how I could teach you to do so! Let me wait and strive, Olive. You deem me wild, perhaps—horsey, and all that sort of thing; but do you think a man never changes, never grows better, under a woman's softening influence? Are you entirely to let this family compact, whatever it may be, Olive—pardon me, Miss Raymond,' he added, as he saw how her face clouded by the reference to her position—'are you intending to let it stand between you and all other chances of marriage?'

'You have no right to question me thus, or to assume this interest in my affairs, Mr. Holcroft.'

'Pardon me, but I have a love for you that will last while life does.'

He did not add that it was the love of—her money.

'If there is only the Master, your cousin, between us, that is no barrier, as I know you don't love him.'

'Then you know more of me than I do of myself,' said Olive, provoked by his blunt brusquerie of manner, and failing to be flattered by his pertinacity just then.

'Perhaps you deem me an heiress?' said Olive, as a new light suddenly broke upon her.

'My dear Miss Raymond,' stammered Holcroft, colouring with surprise at the abruptness of her question. 'I never thought upon the subject; I only knew that—that—I am not just now a man of fortune; my place in Essex——' he paused, thinking the less he said about it the better. 'But who thinks of pelf when the heart is full of passion!' he added, magnanimously. 'But tell me now,' said he, in his most suave tone, 'do you care for anyone else more than for me?'

'I don't care for you at all—at least in the way you mean,' she replied, defiantly.

He ground his teeth, even while he smiled, and thought,

'I must have patience before I tempt my fate again!'

Hawke Holcroft had made it so much a habit during his sojourn at Dundargue to be in close attendance upon Olive—especially when they were alone together—that his lovemaking took her less by surprise. In a spirit of pique she had permitted him to dangle, and to play—if we may use the term—at admiration for herself; but, now that he had become serious a second time, she became alarmed.

The remark which had escaped her had excited some surprise in the mind of Holcroft, as it interested him deeply; thus he said, in a low soft voice,

'You referred to your not being an heiress, Miss Raymond, as if that could possibly make any difference with one who loves you as—as——'

'There, there, that will do!' interrupted the impetuous Olive; 'I am not an heiress, in one sense, but very much of a beggar, if you knew all,' she added, in a voice that faltered.

He regarded her with some bewilderment, as well he might, and said,

'My dear Miss Raymond, what am I to understand by this paradox?'

'Understand that I must marry my cousin Allan, or forfeit papa's fortune—it goes to him if I refuse, or to charities.'

Her distinctness and vehemence carried conviction with her words. Holcroft was confounded; but, being a practised dissembler, he only smiled, and said,

'A most remarkable arrangement, and a tyrannical one for you. But suppose the Master had died in his boyhood—or were to die now?'

'The will would be worthless in effect, of course, I suppose,' replied Olive, whose cheeks now burned scarlet, for—always a creature of hot impulse—she now thought, 'why should I have permitted my self to speak to him, one, almost a stranger, or to any man, of papa's will? What must he think of me! Oh, what will Aunt Aberfeldie say?'

For half a minute Holcroft was silent. He was thinking, 'this must be all bosh!—a cock and a bull, or a madman's will; she doesn't know what she is talking about—no woman or girl ever knows business. Well—I've a pull on her anyway; a viscount's niece isn't in a fellow's power every day, as she will find herself in mine.'

What he referred to we shall show ere long.

While Olive was still crimson with reflections on her own imprudence, Holcroft took possession of her passive hands, and said, in a partly assumed voice of agitation,

'You told me, Miss Raymond—let me say Olive—a minute or two ago that you did not care for me. I shall not take that as your final answer; and ere I leave Dundargue, when I again venture to speak to you on the subject nearest my heart, your reply——'

'Will too probably be the same,' replied Olive, wrenching away her hands, as steps were heard near, and she hastily re-entered the house.

The footsteps heard were those of Allan, who came leisurely up the flight, a broad and stately one, which led to the terrace. He had, while proceeding down the avenue, observed the pair together, and, as it seemed to him, in rather too close proximity. He also remarked Olive's abrupt departure, at his approach as he supposed, and his soul become ireful within him; but he felt himself, as he gave a hand to Holcroft, compelled to dissemble.