'Time will show,' she replied, as one of her spasms made her lip quiver again, and her breath came short and heavily. 'Is there anything Maude or I can do for you--speak, please?' said Roland, starting up. 'Nothing--but do give me your arm to the door of my own room, and ring for Mrs. Drugget.' He gave her his escort tenderly and courteously; and thus ended a brief interview--the first pleasant one he had ever had with 'the usurper' of his patrimony, and which he was to recall at a future time. Whether or not Annot Drummond was thinking over Hester's cloudy and alarming communications it is difficult to say; but she said to the latter after a most effusive meeting with her _fiancé_: 'What _has_ come over Roland since his visit to Edinburgh? He looks shockingly ill--so changed--so _triste_--what does it all mean?' 'I told you he went there on business, and that seems to have always its worries--all the greater, perhaps, to those who detest or know nothing about it.' 'His moodiness quite belies the sobriquet of his name--"The Lindsays lightsome and gay;" but here he comes again. Roland,' she added, springing up and kissing his cheek, 'a thousand thanks, darling, for this lovely bracelet you have brought me. It was so kind--so like you to remember poor little me!' 'As if I could, even for a moment, forget,' was his half-maudlin response, while she drew up her sleeve a little way, coquetishly displaying a lovely arm of snowy whiteness, firmly and roundly moulded by perfect health and youth, with the bracelet clasped on her slender wrist; and while turning it round and round, so as to inspect it in every light and from every point of view, she was thinking that when--after the bestowal of so many other valuable gifts--he could bring her a jewel so expensive as this, surely Hester's hints about _the will_ must have been nonsense, or the outcome of jealousy at her--Annot's--success with a handsome cousin, whom she knew that Hester was at least well disposed to regard with interest. Yet, when she and Roland were together, to Annot's watchful eyes his manner did seem thoughtful and absent at times, and would have caused misgivings but that she thought, and flattered herself, that it was caused, perhaps, by his having to go prematurely to Egypt, like Malcolm Skene. After Elliot had become convalescent, and Roland, with others, had resumed their guns, and betaken them again to the slaughter of the partridges, all went well apparently for a few weeks. There were gay riding parties in the afternoon to visit the ruined castles at Ceres and the muir where Archbishop Sharpe was slain; to the caves of Dura Den at Kemback; picnics to Creich and the hills of Logie; there were dances in the evening, and music, when Hester's rich contralto, Elliot's tenor, Maude's soft soprano, and Roland's bass, took principal parts.