'Oh, Hester, will you not tell me that you will try to love me--to love me a little? Have you not a single word to give me?' Passionately earnest were his handsome eyes--anxious and eager was his lowered voice and the expression of his clearly cut face. He said nothing to her, as other men might have done, of his fortune, of his estate, of his lands of Dunnimarle that overlooked the Forth, of his prospects or his future; all such items were forgotten in the present. Neither did he urge that he was going far--far away from her soon--much sooner than he had then the least idea of--to enhance his value in her eyes, or win her interest in his favour; for even that, too, he forgot. She looked up at him with her soft, velvety, dark-blue eyes suffused, gravely and kindly; the charming little tint gone from her rounded cheeks; her whole face looking very sweet and fair, but not wearing the expression of one who listened with happiness to a welcome tale of love. 'Oh, why do you say all this to me, Mr. Skene--Malcolm I shall call you for old acquaintance' sake--why ask me to marry you?' 'Why? a strange question, Hester,' said he, a little baffled by her apparent self-possession, while tremulous with joy to hear for the first time his Christian name upon her lips. 'Yes--why?' she asked, wearily and sadly. 'Because I love you as much as it is in the nature of an honest man to love a woman.' 'But--but I do not return the sentiment--I cannot love you as you would wish.' 'Not even in the end, Hester?' 'What end?' 'Any time I may give you and hopefully wait for?' She shook her head and cast down her white eyelids. 'And yet no one else seeks your love?' said he a little reproachfully. 'No one else.' 'Can I never make you care for me?' he urged in a kind of dull desperation. 'Pardon me--but I do not think so; my regard, my friendship and gratitude will ever be yours; but please--please,' she added almost piteously, 'do not let us recur to this matter again.' 'You feel the impossibility----' 'Of receiving your words as you wish.' 'You are at least candid with me, Hester; and I shall, indeed, trouble you no more.' He spoke with more grief than bitterness, as he dropped the little and softly gloved hand which he had captured for a moment. She then passed it over his arm and rose, as if to show that all was over and that they were to return to the drawing-room--which she now deeply regretted having quitted--and with them the dancing, the joy, and the brilliance of Maude's little fête had departed for the night. Skene felt that nothing was left for him now but to quit Earlshaugh at once, and the time and the hour came sooner than he expected, and all the more welcome now. But the adventures of the night--adventures in which Mr. Hawkey Sharpe bore a somewhat prominent part--were not yet over. CHAPTER XX. MR. SHARPE MAKES A MISTAKE.