'Here comes Cadbury to sit with me, I suppose, so you may go to your own room,' said Sir Ranald, as the suitor appeared at the door in full evening costume prior to sitting down to dinner, and she gladly withdrew. 'Sir Ranald,' said he, in a low but excited tone of voice, 'I have some news for you.' Now my Lord Cadbury hated sickness, suffering, death-beds, 'and all that sort of thing,' and he had generally avoided Sir Ranald just now, so the latter raised himself on his elbow expectantly. 'News?' said he. 'Yes--that fellow Goring is in Antwerp.' 'Goring! How do you know?' 'Gaskins saw him on board my yacht, where he actually had the insolence to make some inquiries, but Gaskins is a trump, and sent him on a wrong scent.' He did not tell the story of this too probable arrest, as the honourable spirit of Sir Ranald Cheyne would never consent to having a conspiracy of that kind hatched, which might prove the utter destruction of an innocent English gentleman, but he knit his brows, and said, 'We must be careful now, and conceal this circumstance from Alison.' 'Of course, and you must get well as soon as you can, that we may decamp from Antwerp.' 'Curse this Goring!' thought Sir Ranald. 'A fine fellow truly, who has only his debts and liabilities, no doubt, to offer in lieu of solid marriage settlements; but for him and his mal-influence on that idiot girl, through Cadbury, Essilmont, manor house, tower, and fortalice, mains and acres might yet all be mine, and my name not be erased from the roll of country gentlemen in Aberdeenshire!' He sighed and moaned heavily, and Cadbury, who was a bad hand at consolation or sympathy, looked on with angry eyes and knitted brow. That Alison, with a will of her own, should have a fancy for--even desire to marry--the wrong man was, Sir Ranald at times thought, natural enough, but that she should fancy a 'beggarly fellow' like this Goring, as he deemed him, was monstrous, while Cadbury's wealth and rank were thrown into the opposite scale! So Cadbury soon withdrew, and Sir Ranald was left to muse sadly and bitterly on the perversity of his only child and the prospects of his race. He was the last baronet, he knew, of Essilmont, and at his death the last rood that remained to him there--the last of the old, old heritage of his forefathers--would pass with him, and what then would become of Alison? His proud, yet selfish and affectionate, soul died within him at the thought of her future, if she pursued her present line of conduct. Ranald was gone, and Ellon too. He must follow soon, and, even if he had his wish, to him it seemed sad in his family vanity that the world should be threatened with the extinction of the good old name of Cheyne of Essilmont, even though the last of the line became Lady Cadbury. 'Cadbury--faugh--a _parvenu_?' was his next peevish thought; 'and now here was this fellow Bevil Goring on their trail, in full search no doubt!' and he knew that