But having got thus far in his thoughts he began to entertain gloomy and portentous fears. What if Miss Kildhurm should not respond to this sudden and unlooked-for passion of his? What should she know of love? And why should she love him? This last was a question which Harold Bramston might not have thought it necessary to ask himself in respect of every woman that he had met: but, as regarded Hilda Kildhurm, he found himself destitute of any vanity whatever, and inclined to look upon himself as the most insignificant of men. The most insignificant of men? Was there then some other man who was more significant--or who possessed more significance in Hilda's eyes? This idea was torture to Captain Bramston, and he tried to put it away, and to fight against it; but the more he tried the more numerous and plausible were the reasons which suggested themselves to him for supposing it to be true. There must be young men enough in the country-side to love and woo fifty Hildas; and such a Hilda as this might raise up lovers to herself in the midst of a desert. And if she were loved, why might she not love in return? Oh! misery, why might she not be engaged to somebody at this very moment? Was it consistent with human nature to suppose that she could have lived for a little less than twenty years in the world without having been obliged to engage herself to somebody? Captain Bramston groaned inwardly, and cursed his luck for not having made him to be born and raised under the shadow of Kildhurm's Oak.