'It is simply outrageous,' said Lord Aberfeldie, sternly and loftily, 'that even the family of the most humble tradesman should be haunted by a Frankenstein--a swindler, and worse, like this--but that a house like mine--the house of a peer of the realm----' And his lordship in his indignation paused as utterance failed him. 'Mystery is involved here,' exclaimed Lady Aberfeldie, 'and I dislike it intensely, as vulgar and very bad style.' 'By Jove, I should think so,' added Allan, gloomily; 'but this affair, like Cameron's marriage, beats the mysteries of Udolpho!' CHAPTER XI. 'GUP,' AND WHAT CAME OF IT, And now, ere it is too late, to let a little light on what must seem a mystery, and to tell a story which Eveline was not to hear until the fatal die was cast. 'Dear Evan,' said a handsome girl, as she interlaced her slender fingers on Cameron's arm lovingly in one of the most secluded walks of the Princes-Street Gardens, and under the shadow of the towering castle rock, 'I cannot bear to see you looking so unhappy--what _is_ the matter?' 'Eveline Graham has ceased to meet me. She is ill--or--or I know not what!' 'Cannot you ascertain?' 'No. I have no means of ascertaining; moreover, only the other day she cut me.' 'Cut you--passed you?' 'Cut me dead!' 'Surely that was bad in taste.' 'And cruel too--so unlike her, Alice darling, that I know not what to think.' 'She has resolved to accept her rich old baronet--that is all; and I shall hear all about it when I am far away from you in India. How strange,' added the girl, dreamily, while a great, yet pensive, joy lighted up her blue eyes, 'how strange to think that I am still in Edinburgh, and so far away from _him_, when there was a time when I wondered if anyone in this world was ever so happy as I, when dear stupid Duncan asked me to be his wife! And oh, Evan dear, but for you and your great kindness to us, my heart must have broken and I should never have seen Duncan more!' The fair speaker was the Alice whose name had unconsciously escaped Evan, as his heart was full of a great love and pity for her--the wife of his younger brother Duncan, from whom she had been separated in consequence of a foolish jealous quarrel, and having been, through that, sent home by him from India, had no other friend in Europe to whom to turn for succour and support than the kind-hearted, but half-penniless Laird of Stratherroch, who had at last effected an explanation and reconciliation between them.