But she soon forgot the episode, and that night at dinner she looked more radiant than ever, in her suite of Maltese jewellery--gold set with orient pearls. 'It is usual for engaged ladies to have a ring,' Allan had whispered, as he slipped a magnificently jewelled hoop upon her mystic finger. 'Fool that I have been!' thought the girl. 'How near was I estranging one of the best and dearest of men in the world, not for the sake of one immeasurably his inferior, even worthless perhaps, but in a spirit of vanity, pique, and suspicion!' 'Allan,' she whispered to him softly, when an opportunity came, 'I see now how foolish I have been and wilful--oh, so wilful! But we all make mistakes in life, and require at times each other's pity and forgiveness.' How sweetly and shyly she looked and spoke. Hawke Holcroft felt intuitively, and indeed saw, that there was some sudden change in the bearing of the pair to each other, and that a sudden brightness had come into the faces of all--even that of Eveline, usually now so _triste_ and pale--and under his sandy moustache he 'wondered what the devil it all meant,' till his watchful eyes detected the new and brilliant ring on the engaged finger of Olive Raymond! If Mr. Hawke Holcroft imagined he had nothing to dread personally from the Master's sudden visit to Edinburgh he reckoned without his host, as he would have found had he overheard a brief conversation which took place between Allan and his comrade, young Cameron, as they loitered in the gun-room looking over old Joe-Mantons, new rifles, and central-fire breech-loaders, &c. He was not slow to perceive very soon that Allan, usually so suave and pleasant in manner, treated him now with a kind of stiffness that was almost hauteur; but he dissembled his rage and so did Allan, who had a keen sense of the laws of hospitality, with the genuine British dread of aught that might approach a 'scene,' more than all as the visit of Holcroft was nearly ended. Poor wretch! he strove well to keep a brave front in society, while letters that often lay beside his plate at breakfast were seen to cloud his brow with perplexity, for they alluded to wrong horses backed, I.O.U.'s, bills, and cheques 'referred to drawer,' and so forth, and he must have left Dundargue before this, but for a friendly slip of paper, which he had received from Lord Aberfeldie, that 'Fool of Quality,' as he thought him.