'Serious! Did you not know that I loved you better than my own life.' 'I cannot listen to this kind of thing,' said she, rising with positive hauteur and annoyance in her face and manner; 'you forget yourself.' 'When with you I always do--forgive me!' 'I cannot forgive you for talking to me thus.' 'You used not to dislike me, I know; and now there is no sacrifice I would not make to win your love----' 'Permit me to pass!' exclaimed Olive, but he barred her way, and now a glow of half-tipsy rage seemed to possess him. 'Listen, Olive Raymond,' said he, in a low, concentrated and almost fierce tone; 'I have dared and risked much for you--more than you can conceive. There has seldom been aught that I have sworn to possess that has not in time been mine--mine, do you hear! To those who wait, their time and turn always come. I have sworn to possess you, and woe to the man who comes between us.' She regarded him with a haughty and scared yet scornful eye. She saw now that this melo-drama was the result of wine. 'Do you think you could compel me to love you?' she asked, with a provoking smile. 'No.' 'What then?' 'To marry me.' 'Under what pressure, sir?' 'That is my secret---in time you may find it out,' he added, bowing to her with ominous, not mock, politeness, as she passed him with a haughty stare, and left the room. 'She forgets that I have yet her photo, with her own name written on the back in her own hand; and if ever man put the screw on a woman by such a little thing as that, I shall put it on you, Olive Raymond, if you continue to play my Lady Disdain to me!' And for a moment he cast after her retiring figure a glance of sardonic hate a devil might have emulated. 'Good-bye,' he muttered, mockingly, 'is an unpleasant thing to say; with us let it be _au revoir_ rather; perhaps she may yet wave a damp pocket-handkerchief from the outward wall as I ride away; who knows.' 'Sorry to say time is up, my dear fellow,' said Lord Aberfeldie, entering the room with his hat and driving gloves; 'make your adieux to the ladies. There is little doubt that Allan has gone to Loganlee--the covers are first-rate there. I'll just drive over and see, dropping you and your traps at the railway station _en passant_.' A few minutes more and the pair were tooling down the avenue in a smart mail phaeton, drawn by a pair of fine, high-stepping dark greys. So Lord Aberfeldie drove 'the son of his oldest friend' to the station, and, as the distance increased between himself and Dundargue, Holcroft's spirits revived, as if nothing had happened there at all; he actually said, 'And you think to find Allan at Loganlee?' 'I haven't a doubt of it--some tift with Olive, no doubt.' '_Au revoir_, Lord Aberfeldie! and a thousand thanks for all your kindness to me--never shall forget it, by Jove! but I shall have the pleasure of seeing you all again in town, of course.'