'Ay, fool indeed!' commented Dr. Wodrow, roughly. 'Think of all this worry, mischief, pain, and separation!' 'In studying her character I shall have deceived her as to my own.' 'She always seemed to think you were engaged to Miss Galloway.' 'I know that now. Why did you not undeceive her?' 'I had not your permission to move or explain in the matter.' 'And we have parted like strangers almost! What must Mary have thought of me--what can she think of me still?' 'That you were only amusing yourself with her.' 'Hence the strangeness and coolness of her manner towards me at times. Oh, Dr. Wodrow, I never knew how much I loved that girl till now!' exclaimed Colville, as he now realised fully in that time of pain and surprise that Mary Wellwood was the one woman in all the world for him. About her there was an originality which struck him. She was unlike any other girl he had seen; she had a freshness and depth of thought which delighted as much as her beauty bewildered him; and he must have loved her as a cousin if he had not loved her as something more. And now she and Ellinor had gone--fled, as it were--to London in a kind of desperation and sorrow, brought about by his own folly and mismanagement--to London, of all places in the world for girls ignorant of it--beautiful, helpless, and poor! 'But they will soon discover the trick we have played them, Dr. Wodrow,' said Colville, looking up after a silent pause. 'How?' 'If they look in the Army List they will see that there is only one Wellwood in the Guards--myself, Leslie Wellwood Colville.' 'That is where they will never think of looking,' replied Dr. Wodrow; and he was right--the sisters never did; besides, Army Lists were seldom in their way. 'Had that confounded old gossip, Mrs. Wodrow, not come in at the time she did all would have been explained--I was on the point of telling my darling all!' thought Colville, bitterly and angrily; 'all would have been so different now, and I should have won the confidence, as I had evidently won the love of Mary Wellwood. And now to follow and to find her!' 'Where?' asked Dr. Wodrow, pithily and sharply. 'True--true; I must be patient, and wait for tidings through you,' said Colville, with something like a groan. 'By the by, doctor, your son seems cut up about the departure of my cousins.' 'No wonder, poor fellow--since boyhood Miss Ellinor was the apple of his eye.' 'Ellinor?' 'Yes--and they both seemed happy enough in their hope of each other till Sir Redmond Sleath came hovering about her.' Colville's face grew very dark. 'I did not like your friend's character,' said the minister. 'Friend--he was no friend of mine!' said Colville, bluntly. 'I saw through him soon after he first came here; I have had my experience of evil faces, and I could read his like a book.' 'And what were his views regarding Ellinor?' 'Matrimony, on the death of an uncle, I have heard, from whom he has great expectations.'