Their recent brief meeting--the memory of the passionate kisses that should never have been given or taken--added now to the supremeness of the present moment. He only appeared to bow to her; but as he gazed with eyes of passionate yearning on her flower-like face, the lips he had kissed so often, the eyes that had so often looked with love into his, and did so now, his heart filled with a wild and desperate longing to take her to his breast and cover her face with kisses again. But the drums beat, the pipes played loud and high, the crowds cheered, and the forward march went ruthlessly on. All this fuss of Eveline's, thought Sir Paget, could not be merely for the departure of her brother's regiment! At last to Eveline's ears the sound of pipe and drum died away in the distance as the barouche was driven homeward to Maviswood; but now the despair in her face and attitude was too palpable not to attract the attention of Sir Paget, who jerked his face forward quite close to hers and regarded her gloomily and in silence. In all that followed now, Evan Cameron seemed to act mechanically, and to do that which was his duty by mere force of habit, as the regiment marched into the resounding railway station, where he saw the men of his company told-off to compartments; saw the sergeants marking on the footboard of the carriages with chalk the letter of the company; saw the men take off their valises; and ere long the swift special train was sweeping through the dark tunnel that pierces the rocky bowels of Calton Hill, and the Black Watch were fairly off for Egypt again. How to bear his loss in the long years that were to come, if the fortune of war spared him, was the thought that tortured most the mind of Cameron then, and gave him an emotion of despair. He remembered the fixed and agonised gaze of Eveline; he remembered, too, the manner in which her spouse had looked grimly on, with an angry, yet not unsatisfied, jerk of the head, as he, no doubt, was thinking they 'had seen the last of Evan Cameron.' The future! All that was vague to the latter indeed. CHAPTER XVIII. 'IDIOTS ONLY WILL BE COZENED TWICE.' It was on an August evening--the sun had not set, but the sky was cloudy and gloomy; the wind was high, and a heavy sea was on at Spithead, and the conservatory in which Olive was lingering and selecting a button-hole of violets and maiden-hair fern for Allan was so dark already that the lamps were lighted in it. She was dressed for a dinner-party, and was looking charming--her best and brightest--as she sang softly to herself and wandered from one shelf of potted flowers to another, when Allan suddenly joined her, with an expression in his face that was full of mingled sadness and excitement, and with a telegram in his hand. 'Allan, what has happened?' she asked, changing colour, and with dire forebodings in her heart. He caught her hands in his and tried to smile. 'Tell me, why are you so sad?' she asked again.