'Has he been imbibing too much?' 'It was for your sake I let off that poacher Spens this morning,' said he in a slightly reproachful tone. 'For the sake of his wife and children, I hope, rather.' 'Oh, bother his wife and brats! what are they to me compared with the satisfaction of pleasing you?' 'Mr. Sharpe!' said Maude, drawing back a pace, and, in spite of herself, cresting up her proud little head. 'It seems so hard,' said he, affecting an air of humility, and casting down his eyes for a moment, 'that there should be such a gulf apparently between us, Miss Lindsay.' 'A gulf,' repeated Maude, not precisely knowing what to say. 'Yes--and you deepen it. If I attempt to speak to you even as a friend, you recoil from me; and in this huge, sequestered house, it seems natural that we should at least be friends.' 'If we are enemies, I know it not, Mr. Sharpe,' said Maude with some hesitation, and then attempting to cover the latter by a smile, as she knew the necessity--a knowledge which distressed and disgusted her--of temporizing, which seemed, even if for a moment, a species of treason to Jack Elliot. On the other hand, inclination and calculations as to the future, made Sharpe admire Maude very much, and perhaps he was in love with her as much as it was in his nature to be in love with anyone beyond himself. Rejected, or even scorned, he was not a man to break his heart for any woman in the land, though it might become inspired by hatred and a longing for revenge. Yet he was prepared to make 'a bold stroke for a wife' in Maude's instance. If refused once he would try again, and even perhaps a third or a fourth time, and feel only an emotion of rage on his final rejection--so in reality heart was not so much the affair with him. Maude attempted to pass him, but he still barred her way, and even sought, without success, to capture one of her hands. 'Open confession is good for the soul,' he resumed, in a blunt and blundering way, 'and avowals come to one's lips at times, and cannot be restrained. I have played too long with fire, or with edged tools. You must know, Miss Lindsay, that no man could be in your society much without admiring you, and admiration is but a prelude to--love.' Fear of him, and all a quarrel with him might involve, repressed the girl's desire to laugh at this inflated little speech; but he--with all his constitutional impudence--quailed for a moment under the expression that flashed in her eyes--blue, and usually soft and sunny though they were--while she remained silent and thinking: 'What on earth will he say next?' 'Do you not understand me, Miss Lindsay?' he asked, perceiving a look of wonder gathering in her face. 'Do you not know that I love you?' he added, lowering his voice, while glancing round with quick and stealthy eyes. 'Mr. Sharpe,' said Maude, trembling, yet rising to the occasion, 'I understand what you say; but I hope you are not serious, and not insulting me.'