'But he should have remembered you, and who you are.' 'But you don't know--you can't know, how Roland is situated,' said Maude, in a breathless and broken voice. 'I suspect much; but there--don't weep, Maude; the fellow's whole existence is not worth one of your tears.' Maude was full of fear and distress for what might ensue if Roland knew all. Alas! she could very little foresee what _did_ ensue. But notwithstanding his promise to Maude, Elliot was too puzzled by the apparent mystery, and her too evident sense of grief and mortification, not to make some small reference to the affair when he and Roland met for a farewell cigar in the smoke-room, after the last of the guests had driven away. He kept, however, Maude's name out of the matter. 'I am loth, Roland, to have an unseemly row with one of your dependents; but, d--n me, if I don't feel inclined to lash that fellow--Sharpe, I think, his name is!' 'He is certainly an underbred fellow,' said Roland uneasily. 'Then why not send him to the right-about?' 'Easier said than done, Jack--if you knew all,' said Roland, almost with a groan; 'but has he been rude to you?' 'To me--well--yes, in a way he has.' 'With all his impudent would-be air of ease, it is evident he has none, as one may see at a glance,' said Skene, who had been smoking moodily in a corner, 'he is a man who does not know what to do with his legs and arms, or to seem in any way at ease like a gentleman.' 'I feel at times that I would like to kick the fellow,' said Roland, with a sudden gush of anger, 'when he sits with that aggravating smile and see-nothing look on his face, yet "taking stock" of everyone and everything all round--all the while answering me so softly, when he knows that I am burning with contempt and dislike of him. If he would get into a passion and fly out I would respect him more, but he seems to be for ever biding his time--his time for what?' added Roland, almost to himself. 'Passion? You should have seen him to-night!' said Elliot, who, unfortunately for himself, had not yet seen the tail of the storm he had roused; 'but why give him house-room, I say?' 'He is just now a necessary evil--a little time, Jack, and you shall know all,' replied Roland in a somewhat dejected voice; so Elliot said no more. Meantime the subject of these remarks had betaken him to his own apartments, and certainly as he had ascended the old hollowed steps of the turret stair that led thereto they seemed, according to the Earlshaugh legend, to lead down rather than up. 'I'll be even with you, Miss Maude Lindsay, some fine day--see if I am not!' he muttered as he went; 'your high and mighty hoity-toity airs will be the ruin of you and yours. And as for that fellow Elliot, I'll take change out of him--make cold meat of him, by heaven, if I can!'