"I suppose young Fergusson will be very anxious about you?" remarked Wilton, taking advantage of her steady gaze at the fire to study the graceful outline of her head, and ear, and neck, the pale, delicate oval of her face. There was a wonderfully-patrician look about this mysterious girl; how small and white were the hands she had carelessly clasped upon her knee! and, simple as were her manners, too, they were infinitely more refined than the superb Miss Saville's; and, at all events, he would have her all to himself for the next two hours. "Anxious about me?" she said, after a moment's silence; "not very. He will be anxious about his parcel (which, after all, I did not get), and vexed at my absence. But Donald is a strange boy. I know him." "He must be an ungrateful young dog," said Wilton, carefully averting his eyes as she turned to him. "You are so good to him." "It is not what you would call grateful, though he is very fond of me--that is, I have become a necessity to him; then he knows I am fond of him, and I believe no one else is, not even his father. Poor, poor fellow! Ah, how I feel for him!" "He cannot be a pleasant companion." "At times most unpleasant; then, again, wonderfully sympathetic, and so dependent that _I_ feel a great, strong, free creature, rich in youth, and health, and strength, all grand things that Sir Peter's gold cannot buy, and I can do anything for him. Then I forget the dark side of my own lot, and only see the wealth that nature has given me." "You are, indeed, wealthy!" "In some ways, yes; in others--" She stopped, shook her head, with a smile, half-sad, half-mocking, and resumed her gaze at the fire. There was a short pause, and Wilton said: "Still, to so bold a spirit as yours, it must be imprisonment, indeed; and I am not surprised that you seize every chance of momentary relief. But--forgive me if I am presumptuous--it was no ordinary courage that would take you so far afield that night I caught a glimpse of you retreating in the moonlight--no ordinary inducement that would tempt you to such a distance."