'His father was a brave, good fellow, and my dearest friend!' said Lord Aberfeldie sadly; 'how comes his son to be such an utter villain? He has drawn his evil tendencies from some past generation; it is said that such a kind of poison is at times transmitted in the blood, and that no human being can truly value the resistance of sin or folly.' But Lady Aberfeldie was stormy, and declined to be pacified. 'We have the future to think of,' said her husband again; 'evil tongues to guard against for the sake of Olive, our whole family, and my old comrade the General, who is now in his grave--the father of that foul ingrate.' Thus it was that no mention of the affair was made by the daily prints, to the surprise, certainly, and perhaps the relief, of Holcroft's mind. 'Say no more on this subject, Eveline,' said Lord Aberfeldie, as he sought to soothe his wife. 'Gladly would I forget that we had ever sheltered at Dundargue a guest so degrading in character; gladly would I forget as soon as possible--if it be possible--the hours of intense suffering we have undergone, more than all that Allan must have undergone in that horrible place, and yet under his own roof!' Many a silent and reproachful tear Olive shed in secret, as she knew, in the recent past time, how much her pride, petulance, and suspicion had done to further jealousy and resentment in the mind of Holcroft against her cousin; and she felt that too probably she had caused all this. But Holcroft was a bankrupt and a blackleg now, and never more, at London or anywhere else, she thought, could he cross _her_ path again. Till now she never believed that the world could contain a man so utterly unprincipled, so thoroughly base! The household servants supposed that the Master had fallen into that gruesome vault by accident, and they were allowed to adopt the idea. 'But who closed the trap and dropped the hasp over the staple?' thought old Tappleton; yet eventually he allowed himself to be talked into the idea that he had made a mistake in that matter. Allan lay long ill and delirious after all he had undergone; but when it was announced that he was past danger, great was the rejoicing of all the servants and the household at Dundargue, for all loved the Master well, and were faithfully attached to the family by ties of residence and clanship, even in this Victorian age. 'The devoted loyalty of the clansmen to their chiefs existed undiminished for generations after the system of clan government was abolished in 1746,' said the _Standard_ newspaper recently; 'and it would be wholly erroneous to contend, _even now_, that the peculiar affection between the people and their chief, altogether different in nature and degree from any relationship known in a Saxon community, has died away.' But the family of Aberfeldie had not seen the last of Mr. Hawke Holcroft. CHAPTER VII. LOVERS.