'You know, papa, it is always said that no man ever marries his first love.' 'It may be so, Hester--it may be so; but one thing you may be sure of, if he is a true man.' 'And that is-- 'He never can forget her.' Sir Harry's eyes kindled, and his voice grew soft as he said this; for his thoughts were wandering away to the wife of his youth--she who now lay in the old kirkyard above the Esk--and of whom Hester seemed then a living reproduction, or the old man thought so; and when he spoke thus in the love and chivalry of his heart, he revived in Hester a moth-like desire to go to Earlshaugh after all, such is the idiosyncrasy of human nature; and as some one has it, 'to suffer that self-immolation, which is common to unhappy lovers. She longed to see Roland once more'--to feast her eyes upon the man who seemed happy with another, no matter what the after-pain might be. What she meant to say or do, or how to look--when this new fancy seized her--she knew not. She only knew that--meanly, she thought--she hungered and thirsted for the sound of his voice and a glance of his eyes, before, perhaps, he--even as the husband of Annot Drummond--went to Egypt or elsewhere, it might be to return, perhaps, no more. Meanwhile, that 'fair one with the golden locks' was all feverish impatience till the time came for quitting Merlwood, and had no doubt that Roland would cross the Forth to meet her. 'You seem strangely interested in the movements of Roland,' said Sir Harry rather grimly to her. 'He is almost half a cousin, is he not, uncle?' said Annot, in her most cooing and caressing way; 'but no one would think me so foolish as to lose my heart to a mere cousin.' 'None will suspect you of such a loss, indeed,' observed Hester, with some pardonable bitterness, as she recalled all she had so unwillingly overheard in the shrubbery on that eventful evening. CHAPTER X. ROLAND'S HOME-COMING. Let us return to the day of Roland Lindsay's departure from Merlwood, when full of thoughts of a sorrowful cast, and perhaps in the frame described by Wordsworth as 'That sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.' A letter that had come for him overnight--one from Annot's mother in South Belgravia--he scanned twice hurriedly, and consigned to his pocket. Annot, in that quarter, had made no secret, apparently, of the terms on which he and she were, and the congratulations of the old lady were palpable enough. 'What is next?' he muttered, as he opened a little basket and laughed. It contained sandwiches and sherry, peaches, grapes, and a little bouquet of hot-house flowers, all selected, he knew, by the white hands of Hester. 'Poor girl!' he muttered; 'does she think I am bound, not for Earlshaugh, but for Alexandria?'