Thus Blanche Galloway was displeased with the manner in which Leslie Colville hovered about Mary Wellwood, while Colville, and more especially Robert Wodrow, were both displeased by the conspicuous absence of Sir Redmond and Ellinor. Robert knew not where they had been, and somehow never thought of looking in the conservatories, and probably would not have done so had the idea occurred to him. He had not been near her all day, and he was now, more than ever, beginning to realise bitterly that the girl he had loved so well all these years past, and who, he certainly thought, loved him, was going out of his life as completely as if she had never existed. Yet he could not relinquish her without another effort--another last appeal; though he quitted the gaieties of Craigmhor early with a sore and swollen heart. The evening was far advanced when the sisters returned to Birkwoodbrae. There was a letter lying on the dining-room table addressed to Ellinor in the familiar handwriting of Robert Wodrow. Why did he write to her now when he lived so close by, as a hedge only separated Birkwoodbrae from the glebe? unless to tell her what he dared not trust his lips to do; and her heart foreboded this. The letter lay almost beneath her hand white and glaring in the last flush of the sunset; but, until Elspat had retired and Mary had followed on some household matter intent, she did not trust herself to open it. Then when there was no one by to observe her, she slowly opened the letter of the lover who too truly feared he had been supplanted by another. Line after line--though it was brief--the words were loving and tender, but ended in bitterness and upbraiding; passion made them eloquent, and they burned into the heart of the girl as the eyes and voice of Robert haunted her; but she felt besotted by this new and showy admirer, he was so different from homely, honest, Robert Wodrow--so different from any man she had ever met before; and why should Robert, who was only her friend--her old playmate, she strove to think, but with much sophistry, attempt to compete with him and control her movements. 'I must give you up, Robert,' she half whispered to herself; and then the idea occurred to her, 'would she have done so had she never met Sir Redmond Sleath?' The letter had a postscript:-- 'My darling, the windows of your room face mine over the orchard wall. If you have not cast me utterly out of your heart, for pity sake give me some sign then to-morrow--place a vase of flowers upon your window-sill, and I shall know the token.' But Robert Wodrow next day, from earliest dawn till morn was long past, looked and watched in vain for the sign, but none was given to him; for though the heart of Ellinor Wellwood was wrung within her, she was too completely under a new and baleful influence now, and the old love was fast being forgotten.