'Hearts don't break now-a-days, even in such romantic places as Dundargue,' said she, with a sharp little laugh; 'and here this matter ends.' He bowed in silence; but, fatally perhaps for Allan's interests and her own, she thought, and her vanity was flattered by the idea: 'Holcroft loves me, despite the tenor of papa's will--loves me, for myself, of course; while Allan _knows_ its value to himself! Surely there is a difference in this!' But it was precisely because Holcroft knew neither of the will nor its spirit that he took the courage to address her as he did. Had he done so, that enterprising gentleman would speedily have 'dropped out of the hunt,' and, so far as he is concerned, we should then have no story to tell. Meanwhile he did not lose heart, and thought he had only to wait the fulness of time for the certainty of winning her, and with her, wealth--of joy or happiness he took no heed at all. By this time, greatly to Olive's relief, Eveline and her two swains had overtaken them, and so the matter dropped, though the minds of both, from two points of view, were full of it. She would now have to endure the double annoyance of being daily in the society of a lover who had addressed her as such, and of an _intended_ lover who had scarcely yet approached the subject! And, for some reason only known to herself, she did not tell Eveline, though her bosom-friend, of what had passed between herself and Holcroft. The latter, however, still retained the golden bangle on which her name was engraved; but for a time now there was something in her manner little to the liking of Hawke Holcroft--full as he was of dreams of her, or of her fortune rather--of the risks he ran, and the shifts to which he might be put ere he handled it. CHAPTER IX. THE PICNIC AT DUNSINANE. Ambling on together and urging their horses, but at an easy pace, they soon drew near the object of their destination--Macbeth's famous castle of Dunsinane--whither the portly old butler, Mr. Tappleton, had preceded them in a wagonette, freighted with a luxurious luncheon; and, leaving their cattle in charge of the grooms, they began the ascent of that peak of the Sidlaw Hills which has been immortalised by Shakespeare. With her riding-skirt thrown over her left arm, Eveline acted as their guide, and it may easily be supposed that she solicited the assistance of Cameron's arm, rather than that of Sir Paget Puddicombe, who had quite enough to do in assisting himself up a path which proved to him, as he said, 'rather a breather.'