To this expression of pleasure Lord Aberfeldie made no response, but shook Holcroft's hand, whipped up his greys, and was off, thinking, 'I am glad _he_ has gone; he looks sadly strange and queer, poor fellow.' Holcroft was intensely relieved when the peer had left, and, making straight for the railway buffet, imbibed glass after glass of pretty potent Glenlivat, conversing affably the while with the young damsel thereat. 'Of what are you thinking, sir, that you stare at me so?' she asked, with a giggle. 'Only that your mother must have been a sweetly pretty girl!' The train was late; thus he had to spend some time in staring aimlessly at the flaming advertisements on the station wall--an Anglo-American fashion now spread to Scotland--advertisements of some one's cocoa, some one's corsets, some one's whisky, and so forth; and, after glancing with a contemptuous malediction at the thick bible left by the Scottish something society in the little waiting-room, he smoked a cigar, had himself weighed, had a brandy and soda, had some more chaff with the pretty girl at the buffet, till the night train came snorting and clanking in, when he took his seat, spread his rugs, and was off, as he thought, to security at last! Though he was not without reasonable and selfish dread for the future, as the night train sped on its swift way, and left the Carse of Gowrie far behind, he felt no genuine compunction for the atrocity he had committed. He did not possess a single spark of honour, gratitude, compunction, or compassion. By unfair play he had rooked many; he had hocussed horses; and once ruined a poor lad in the Lancers, on whom he contrived to cast the suspicion of his own act. The Lancer was dismissed the service by sentence of a court-martial, and shot himself next day; and Hawke Holcroft took his luxurious luncheon quietly in the same inn where the inquest was held, at the same time. He had extorted money in many ways--he had never precisely robbed; but never before had he been in the dark abyss of assassination and death till now! The annals of our courts of justice contain many a terrible tale of guilt; but, says a novelist with truth, these would appear like nothing with the history of undiscovered and unpunished crime. 'The assassin who accomplishes his terrible purpose so craftily as to escape detection is a cool and calculating fiend, by the side of whose supreme villainy, the half-premeditated crime of the ordinary shedder of blood, is dwarfed into insignificance.' So on and on sped the swift night train, and there seemed every probability that the deed of Holcroft would be one of the crimes referred to, that are neither discovered nor punished. He gave a last look into his pocket-book to assure himself that the cheque and the photo of Olive were safe, and then tried to compose himself to sleep. Let us hope that the attempt was vain!