Annot, though apparently passive no longer, feigned a desire to continue 'the entanglement,' for such she deemed it--this engagement to Roland, begun at Merlwood. She had a secret gratitude for the information that had come to her in time of his future prospects. She could have continued to love him after a fashion of her own, and perhaps as much as it was in her selfish nature to love anyone; but it must be as proprietor of Earlshaugh, of which she had an overweening desire to be mistress, and, moreover, she never meant to form or face 'a moneyless marriage.' And now in this meeting with Roland she felt that a crisis in her fate had come; that the sooner it was over and done with the better; and with a power of will beyond what anyone could have conceived a girl so soft and fair, so small in stature and lovely in feature might possess, she kept her appointment; but, without referring even to Lucrezia Borgia, who was a golden-haired little creature, with a feeble and vapid expression of face (as Mrs. Jameson tells us), does not history record how often fair little women have been possessed of iron will and nature? Annot accorded her soft cheek to Roland's lip so coldly that he scarcely touched it! Both looked pale, though they stood, when regarding each other, in the red light of the October sunset, that streamed like a crimson flood through a deeply embayed old window near them. Annot wore a dark dress, and round her slender throat a high ruffle of black lace, which, like the jet drops in her tiny ears, enhanced the marvellous fairness of her skin, as Roland remarked, for even such trifling details failed to escape him in that time of doubt and exceeding misery. 'You have not kept me waiting,' said she with a smile, and as if feeling a dire necessity for saying something. 'Was it likely I should do so, Annot, when I have counted every moment of time since I sent my little note to you?' replied Roland, feeling instinctively from what he saw in her eye and manner that the dreaded time had come! 'How silly--useless I mean, such impatience, when we meet daily somewhere--at meals and so forth!' said she, looking out upon the far expanse of green park, steeped in the hazy sunshine of one of the hot evenings of October. 'Annot,' said Roland impatiently, and striking a heel on the floor as he spoke, 'after what passed between us last--a conversation alike distasteful and painful--I can no longer endure the suspense, the agony your conduct and bearing cause me. Do you really wish all to be at end between us?' His eyes were bent eagerly upon her face, the muscles of which certainly quivered with emotion--either love or shame, he knew not which--and he took her hands in his, but relinquished them; his own were hot and trembling as if he had an ague, white hers were firm and cold as they were white and beautiful.