He left her; and, sinking into a sofa, she abandoned herself to a stormy fit of weeping and to sad and bitter reflections, and to many unavailing regrets--unavailing now, as they were to be parted so soon; and one grim and harrowing fact stood darkly out amid them all--her affianced lover was going to the seat of war and disease, to face unnumbered perils in that fatal land of Egypt! A slight sound roused her, and drew her attention to a glass-door of the conservatory that opened to the garden. A man's face seemed glued against it--a face white and ghastly, apparently regarding her fixedly--the face of Hawke Holcroft, emaciated by dissipation, want, or disease--probably by all three--his shifty eyes bloodshot and wild in expression. In another moment she would have screamed with terror; but he opened the door, entered, and stood before her. 'I never thought--at least, I was in hope never to see you again,' said Olive, starting up, and recoiling from him. 'Ha--indeed. But in this world are not those always meeting who are better far apart?' was his mocking response. 'What brings you here--what do you want?' asked Olive, gathering courage from desperation, and trembling in her soul lest Allan should return and find this villainous intruder there. 'What do I want! Money. I am, and have been for days, starving.' 'Money I shall not be weak enough to give you again, under any threat or any pressure. The last I gave you cost me dearly,' said Olive, firmly, though terrified to find herself face to face with this would-be assassin again. 'You will not?' 'No.' 'Then give me these jewels--these diamonds,' he said, hoarsely; and, ere she could move or speak, he snatched up the necklace and pendants from a pedestal on which she had placed them, and thrust them into his breast-pocket. 'For a time, now, the work of art I possess shall be withheld from the British public--but for a time only--and in the memory of the time when you loved me, or led me to believe that you did.' 'Insolent--how dare you say so?' she exclaimed. 'You tried to win my heart, and won it, too--you played with me fast and loose, as you did with your cousin, for whom you did not care one doit, then at least, and for whom I believe you care nothing now.' Olive glanced round her in dismay, for should such words as these, and others that followed them, reach listening ears, she might be lost, and she was powerless to stay the impetuous current of his studiously mischievous speech. Moreover, she did not see what Hawke Holcroft saw behind some towering ferns and other plants--a form, with firm-set teeth and flashing eye, transported by fury, while his feet were rooted to the spot--the face of Allan Graham, who saw and overheard, yet failed to comprehend the situation! A vindictive desire to separate the lovers if he could, and to humiliate the man he hated, took possession of the diabolical mind of Holcroft, who said,