Transported with anger, Sir Paget snatched the letter from her hand, and, adjusting his gold _pince-nez_ on his nose, focussed the lines and glared at them; and after he had read he tossed it from him. 'An insult, by Jove, Lady Puddicombe--a deliberate insult!' 'Sir Paget,' began Eveline, but paused; she knew not what to urge or say, though she knew but too well all the bequest implied. 'Who wants his dirty acres of Highland bog and rock? Not I--the presumptuous fellow!' 'Presumptuous!' repeated Eveline, with a bitter smile, as she thought of the antecedents of the baronet of Slough-cum-Sloggit. 'Cameron's descent is as old as the hills; his ancestors have hunted with James V., and in battle were the comrades of Montrose and Dundee.' 'What the devil is all this to me--or to _you_, for the matter of that?' snarled Sir Paget, puffing out his chest. 'I am at liberty to reject this bequest on my own part.' 'But not on mine,' replied Eveline, quietly yet firmly. 'The deuce--you will accept it?' 'Why should not I--if I do injustice to none?' 'And degrade yourself in the eyes of the world!' 'How, Sir Paget?' 'What was this man to you? every man will naturally inquire.' 'None can know that he was ever even a friend to me,' said Eveline, with difficulty restraining her tears. 'It must be rejected, I say!' 'But the estate is not left to you, Sir Paget.' 'Estate!' said he, scornfully. 'A few acres of bog and heather, and a mansion that probably keeps out neither wind nor weather.' So no action was taken in the matter for a time, and the letter of Messrs. Horning and Tailzie, W.S., remained unanswered, much to the surprise of these gentlemen (who deemed themselves persons of no small importance), and was to remain so until the return from cub-hunting at Hurdell Hall. Sir Paget was sorely ruffled by this new event, and felt himself at liberty to sneer vulgarly at Eveline's former lover, and at her shattered fidelity to any vows she made by her marriage with himself; whereas the poor girl had never made one. She felt that--as a wedded wife--she must stand alone in her secret grief, and beyond the pale of human succour or sympathy, and the sweet words of 'Auld Robin Gray' occurred to her: 'I daurna think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin.' Times there were when she dreamt of Evan vividly, and that he was with her again. 'Why should it be a miracle that the dead come back?' asks an author; 'the wonder is that they do not. How can one go away who loves you and never return, nor speak, nor send any message--that is the miracle; not that the heavens should bend down and the gates of Paradise roll back and those who have left us return.' At such times he seemed near to her, and his voice was in her ears--more near to her than he had ever been. He loved her, but he was gone--gone, and the grey day was stealing slowly in!