'However they stand, her heart is not in it,' was his ever-recurring thought; 'and if so, why the deuce shouldn't I try my hand? She has a pot of money--indeed, no end of money, I hear; but, then, if her noble aunt and uncle have made up their noble minds to pounce upon her as a daughter-in-law, how is she to resist, unless she elopes, if "Barkis" (meaning Allan) "is willin'"? They can make her life a burden to her until she gives in, or--or I run away with her, and why the devil should I not?' Holcroft was an artful man, and well acquainted with every phase of dissipated life; he had suave manners when he chose and an unexceptionable appearance. With many debts and secret passions, he was cold and selfish; a man who never made a move in any way without forecast and calculation; and who might commit a crime if driven to it, but never precisely a folly. He was closely watching Olive while he conversed with her; he admired her beautiful person, but still more her ample purse. She dared to trifle with him at times, he thought; and then, even when looking down upon her satin-like hair, her dazzling white shoulders and innocent violet eyes, with a vengeful feeling he mentally vowed that he would _compel_ her to love him, or accept him, he cared not which, if human will and cunning failed him not! He had a love--a passion for her--in a strange fashion of his own, yet times there were when he almost hated her for fencing with him: and little could the soft, bright beauty, who raised her fine eyes from time to time to his and conversed so laughingly with him, have conceived the conflicting emotions that were concealed in his breast under a smiling exterior, or the shame and agony he was yet to cost her. Even when he attempted to look loving, there were a cold expression and lack of colour in his eyes, and there was something very significant of an iron will about his lips and powerful chin. Olive had no warm feeling for Holcroft, and save for the obnoxious will would infinitely have preferred her cousin Allan in the end; but she affected just then to believe in Platonic friendship (blended with a little judicious flirtation) so firmly that, to pique Allan, she showed a great apparent preference for his would-be rival. Olive and Holcroft knew that this seeming flirtation was perilous work, and might compromise them both with Lord and Lady Aberfeldie, and with Allan, too, if it attracted attention; but Holcroft had a game to play. Olive's proud little heart was full of resentment and pique, and then anything with a spice of danger in it is always curiously fascinating. More than all, Olive was beginning to feel conscious that, under the circumstances, it was strangely awkward to be in the same house with Allan Graham--the intended husband to whom her father had bequeathed her. But whither could she go?