The whole tenor of the conversation or interview forced upon her by Shafto impressed her with a keen and deep sense of humiliation that made her weep bitterly; how much more keen would the sense of that have been had she known what in the purity of her nature she never suspected, that, amid all his grotesque love-making, marriage was no way comprehended in his scheme! Much as she disliked Shafto, an emotion of delicacy, with a timid doubt of the future with regard to Captain Hammersley, and what was behind that future with regard to 'the cousins,' as she of course deemed them to be, induced Dulcie to remain silent with Finella on the subject of his persistent and secret attentions to herself, though she would have deplored to see Finella the wife of Shafto. The interview we have described had not passed without observers, we have said. 'Fettercairn, look how Miss Carlyon and Shafto are flirting near the Swan's Pool!' said the Lady of that Ilk, drawing her husband's attention to the pair from a window of the drawing-room. 'What makes you think they are doing so?' he asked, but nevertheless with knitted brows. 'Cannot you see it?' 'No; it is so long since I did anything in that way myself that really I--aw----' 'See with what _empressement_ he bends down to address her, and she keeps her head down, too, though she seems to crest it up at times.' 'But she edges away from him palpably, as if she disliked what he is saying, and, by Jove, she looks indignant, too!' 'That may be all acting, in suspicion that she is observed, or it may be to lure him on; one never knows what may be passing in a girl's mind--if she thinks herself attractive especially.' 'Well--to me they seem quarrelling,' said Lord Fettercairn. 'Quarrelling--and with my companion! How could Shafto condescend to do so?' 'That is more than I can tell you--he is rather a riddle to me; but the girl is decidedly more than pretty, and very good style, too.' 'And hence the more dangerous. I must speak with Shafto on this subject seriously, or----' 'What then?' 'Get rid of her.' 'If we fail in marrying Shafto to Finella, who can say whom he may marry, as his instincts seem somewhat low, and after we are gone there may be a whole clan of low and sordid prodigals here in Craigengowan.' 'And Radicals!' suggested Lady Fettercairn. 'Desecrating the spots rendered almost sacred by association with a great and famous past,' said Lord Fettercairn loftily. What this great and famous 'past' was, he could scarcely have told. It was not connected with his own mushroom line, whatever it might have been with the former lords of Craigengowan, whose guests had at times been Kings of Scotland and Princes of France and Spain.