'Well, if you leave Craigengowan simply to avoid me I shall certainly tell your grandmother the reason; and how will you like that?' 'You will?' 'By heaven, I will! That he and you alike resented my regard for you?' To say that Shafto loved Finella, with all her beauty, would be what a writer calls a 'blasphemy on the master-passion;' but he admired her immensely, longed for her, and more particularly for her money, as a protection--a barrier against future and unseen contingencies. At his threat Finella grew pale with anticipated annoyance and mortification; but in pure dread of Shafto's malevolence, and for the other reasons given, she did not hasten her preparations for departure, and ere long the arrival of a new guest at Craigengowan decided her on remaining, for this guest was one for whom she conceived a sudden and lasting affection, and with whom she found ties and sympathies in common. After being out most part of a day riding, Shafto returned in the evening, and, throwing his horse's bridle to a groom, was ascending the staircase to his own room, when, framed as it were in the archway of a corridor, he saw, to his utter bewilderment, the face and figure of Dulcie Carlyon! His voice failed him, and with parted lips and dilated eyes she gazed at him in equal amazement, too, but she was the first to speak. 'Shafto,' she exclaimed, 'you here--_you_?' 'Yes,' he snapped; 'what is there strange in that? This is my grandfather's house.' 'Your grandfather's house?' she repeated, and then the details of the situation came partly before her. She lifted up her eyes, wet with tears like dewy violets, for his voice, if hard and harsh, was associated with her home and Revelstoke, but she shrank from him, and her lips grew white on finding herself so suddenly face to face with one whom she felt intuitively was a kind of evil genius in her life! Dulcie just then seemed a delightful object to the eye. That pure waxen skin, which always accompanies red-golden hair, was set off to the utmost advantage by the dead black of her deep mourning, and her plump white arms and slender hands were coquettishly set off by long black lace gloves, for Dulcie was dressed for dinner, and her soft white neck shone like satin in contrast to a single row of jet beads, her only other ornament being Florian's locket, on which the startled eyes of Shafto instantly fell. Dulcie saw this, and instinctively she placed her hand--a slim and ringless little white hand--upon it, as if to protect it, and gather strength from its touch; but her bosom now heaved at the sight of Shafto, and fear and indignation grew there together, for she was losing her habitual sense of self-control. 'You--here?' he said again inquiringly. 'Yes,' she replied in a broken voice, 'and I wonder if I am the same girl I was a year ago, when poor papa was well and living, and I had dear Florian--to love me!'