Though not unhandsome, the face of Sir Redmond was not always a pleasant one to look upon. A certain force about it there was, and those who watched it felt that its owner was not a man to be trifled with in anything that touched his self-interest or his evil purposes; that he was a man ready for emergencies and heedless of obstacles if he had an end in view. Like a character recently described by a novelist, 'his great weapon was his inflexible will, aided by the reputation he had achieved of never allowing himself to be defeated. I need not say that he held women in the most supreme contempt, and openly expressed his opinion that every woman had her price. The only merit he assumed was in knowing the exact article of barter each had set her heart on.' Such was the pleasant personage who had supplanted Robert Wodrow, and even while he was softly caressing the girl and subjecting her to his endearments, he was thinking of the time to come--the time when she would find herself separated from her loving sister, her only tie on earth--alone in the world, penniless and in his power, her character and position utterly lost, and when none would believe her most solemn protestations of innocence; then would be his hour of supreme triumph, when, like a bruised and wounded bird, she would come fluttering to him for succour and protection, and when he might be generous, and make her over to 'that yahoo, Robert Wodrow.' 'I shall have a splendid house in which to enshrine you when the time comes and I am free,' continued the tempter; 'you, my darling, have known no home but this sequestered one--apart from all the world--a world of which you know nothing.' 'And poor Mary--how can I leave her?' 'Nor need you do so--once we are away and have been made one we shall send for her; it will only be the matter of a post or two. I shall so love and cherish you both,' urged Sleath, half laughing in his mind at the conviction that she would never see Mary again until--well, until he was tired of her. 'Courage, little one, and you will be Lady Sleath--it is a second edition of the miller's lovely daughter.' 'I am not quite so humble as she was,' said Ellinor, making a little _moue_. 'Nor I so exalted as the "gracious Duncan." To-morrow night, then, dearest Ellinor, at this hour--nine o'clock, I shall await you with a hired carriage at the corner of the lane below Birkwoodbrae, and a short drive will take us to the station, where we shall get the up train for London and the south!' Ellinor answered only by her tears, and the silently-accorded kiss that gave consent, and went shudderingly back to her home, feeling as if she was hovering on the verge of an abyss. And she was so in more ways than one! CHAPTER XV. HOW FAUST SUCCEEDED. The day, an eventful one, indeed, to Ellinor--wore on; the 'to-morrow night' of Sir Redmond's arrangements had become 'to-night,' and the hour of nine seemed to be approaching swiftly.