“The daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and granddaughter of the Duke of Lanark is not in a position to marry for mere caprice any person she may happen to take a fancy to,” he said. “_Noblesse oblige._ You must keep up the traditions of your family and marry some one in your own rank of life. It is a duty which you owe to your family, your training, and your parents. In your case, the duty is all the more clearly marked out for you, as Lady Cranstoun’s health depends entirely upon your fulfilment of her clearly expressed wishes; if you disappoint her in her very natural and loving wish to see you happily married to so intellectual and high-minded a nobleman as Lord Carthew, her death may lie at your door.” Stella rose from her chair and walked away from him toward the window. She felt that a net was being drawn about her feet, and her former liking for Lord Carthew turned to a resentful dislike. With her heart throbbing in her bosom at the very thought of another man, with every fibre of her being tingling with passionate love for him, how could she tamely endure the suggestions that, even for her mother’s sake, she must marry Lord Carthew? It was useless to reason with her. The gypsy Carewe blood in her veins was burning with unreasoning passion. She loved Hilary Pritchard, loved him with such unquestioning ardor that she would only too gladly have left her home that night to follow him, penniless and barefooted, throughout the world. Arguments were wasted upon such a nature. There was no trace of the cold and proud Douglas element in _her_ temperament; eccentric, strong-willed Cranstoun, and wild, lawless Carewe had united to produce this strange, half-tamed creature, with only a coating of education and repressive training over the primeval passions, the wandering instincts, and the marked rebellion against all constituted authority which characterize her race. All the gypsy in her was dominant to-night as, with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes, she went up to her harp, and striking a few effective chords, sat down before it, and broke into a Hungarian air, which had greatly taken her fancy among some new music which had arrived from town during her father’s absence. Perhaps her strange meeting with old Sarah Carewe had put the thought of the gypsy race into her head; or else it was that in her present excitable, rebellious, and agitated mood, the wild Zingari music appealed to her feelings; certain it is that she threw all the repressed intensity of her nature into the song. She was an excellent musician, and played from memory, suggesting the air, now wild, now plaintive, by a succession of chords. The words, too, a lament supposed to be uttered by a dying “Egyptian,” chimed in with her own frame of mind sufficiently well to enable her to throw her whole soul into her voice.