But once again, in the long shady avenue near the Weird Yett, when Maude was idling there, under the cold blue sky of an October evening, with Jack Elliot--idling in the happiness a girl feels when on the brink of her marriage with the man she loves with all the strength of her warm heart--the man whose voice and the mere touch of whose hand gives joy--she felt that heart turn cold when she detected Annot--her brother's _fiancée_--bidding a hasty adieu to the stranger before referred to--clad in a red hunting coat, and leading his horse by the bridle. So a crisis of some kind was surely at hand now! CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE CRISIS. What did, or what could, Annot mean by this studied duplicity and defiance of propriety? thought Maude; but ere she could reflect much on the subject, or consider how to speak to Roland about it, or whether she should simply let him discover more for himself, the crisis referred to in our last chapter came to pass, and the possible '_other_ distractions' that had occurred, in his irritation, to Roland's mind were forgotten by him then. Notwithstanding what had passed between them, the charm of Annot's manner, her graceful and piquant ways, impelled or allured him again, and his passionate love for her swelled up at times in his breast. Was he not to make one more effort, or was it too late to win her love again? Like one who when drowning will cling to a straw, Roland, with all his just indignation at Annot, clung to his faith in her; but they had parted with much apparent coldness; and, as we have said, in that huge old rambling mansion of Earlshaugh, as it was easy for people to avoid each other it they wished to do so, he had not again met her alone. Thus any explanation was deferred, and, with all his love, he felt painfully that if he once began fully to doubt her and surrendered himself to that idea, all would be lost; and yet he had little cause for confidence now, apparently. From her own lips again he resolved--however galling to his pride--to hear his fate, of her wishes and of her love, if the latter still was his; and thus he asked her by note to meet him in the library, at a time when they were sure to be undisturbed, as Mrs. Lindsay was usually indisposed at the hour he selected, and Maude, Jack, and Hester would be, he knew, absent riding. From his own lips Annot had been fully informed of how his father's will was framed, but her ambition went far beyond that of Becky Sharp when the latter thought she would be a good woman on five thousand a year, would not miss a little soup for the poor out of that sum, and could pay everybody when she had it.