Maude, though she knew not then the reason, had seen how Hester Maule, after coming from the conservatory, with a kind of good-night bow to Skene, had abruptly quitted the dancers, and looking pale, ill, and utterly out of spirits, had retired to her own room, whither she soon accompanied her; but failing to learn the reason of her discomposure, was returning downstairs to have one last turn with Jack Elliot, when she suddenly met Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, the result of whose attentions to the wine in the refreshment-room was pretty apparent in his face and watery gray eyes, and he paused unsteadily with a hand on the great oaken banisters. As Maude came tripping down the broad stone staircase with leisurely grace and clad in a soft and most becoming dress, one of those 'whose apparently inexpensive simplicity men innocently admire, and over the bills for which husbands and fathers wag their heads aghast,' he glanced appreciatively at her snowy neck and shoulders, where her girlish plumpness hid even the small collar-bones; at her beautiful, blooming face, her sunny hair; her petulant, scornful mouth, and delicate profile; while she, with some remembrance of how he had acquitted himself among the dancers, and when waltzing, in attempting to reverse, had spread dismay around him, for a moment felt inclined to smile. Wine gave Hawkey Sharpe fresh courage, and just then some new thoughts had begun to occur to him. He had seen that--unlike young Malcolm Skene, who hovered about Hester like her shadow, and unlike Roland, who was never absent from the side of Annot--Captain Elliot and Maude were not apparently overmuch together; for in the assured position of their love and engagement they seemed in society very much like other persons. He was ignorant of the mystery that there could be 'Sighs the deeper for suppression, And stolen glances sweeter for the theft,' and in the coarseness of his nature and lack of fine perception he mistook the situation, and began to think that, notwithstanding all he heard mooted, and notwithstanding the fact of seeing a letter addressed in Maude's handwriting to the gentleman in question, there might be 'nothing in it,' but perhaps an incipient flirtation; and he had resolved on the first opportune occasion to renew his pretensions, as the Captain had evidently danced much with other girls--perhaps, he thought, had preferred them--during the past night. And now it seemed the time had come; and, over and above all his extreme assurance, he thought to win through her terror and necessity of temporizing for appearance' sake what she never might yield to any regard for himself; and even now, as he prepared to address her, anger, fear, and a sickly sense of humiliation suddenly came into the heart of Maude, though a moment before it had been beating happily with thoughts that were all her own.