'A decent stock--an adventurer!' repeated Eveline; and then, as she thought of Evan Cameron's long line of warlike and heroic ancestors, as compared with the peculiar line of the Puddicombes, she laughed bitterly, while Sir Paget eyed her questioningly, and said, 'It is fortunate you were separated. Well, I suppose you won't die of a broken heart, and all that sort of thing, like the girls we see on the stage and read about in novels.' Roused at last by these coarse taunts, Eveline said, 'Sir Paget, I thought you were ignorant of the ways and meannesses of the fashionable world; don't, please, adopt those of sneering and being jealous--if, indeed, that world is ever jealous, or can love enough to be so.' And, turning away, she took refuge in a gush of tears, inspired by intense mortification, while Olive caressed and strove to soothe her. 'An absurd old man!' exclaimed Olive, angrily--'a widower, too, who began life by loving and marrying another--how dare he treat you thus?' 'Oh, Olive, how shall I ever pass all the long years before I die, and with _him_, not Evan?' 'My darling--hush--this will never do,' urged Olive, who became alarmed by the chance of some new _esclandre_. 'I don't understand all this, Lady Aberfeldie,' said Sir Paget, greatly ruffled, when he saw that handsome and always serenely calm matron; 'your daughter is an enigma to me,' he added, ashamed to acknowledge what he suspected and she perfectly knew. 'I sometimes surprise her in tears, and, if I ask the cause, she pleads a passage in a novel, or that her music made her sad. Stuff and nonsense! I should like to see the book or hear the music that would wring tears from me.' 'Try change of scene,' said Lady Aberfeldie. Daily Eveline's hazel eyes seemed to become larger and brighter, while her face grew paler, and all the delicate rose-leaf colour and complexion faded out of it. The lines of her young features, if sorrowful, were very sweet, and her eyes, if somewhat sad, seemed calm in expression now. Yet the girl had ever before her the last _haunting_ look that Evan gave her as he marched past, amid the wild hurly-burly of the dense crowd that surged around the departing Black Watch--the long, silent, and indescribable look of those who gaze their last upon the silent dead; for dead she was to him! At times, when quite alone, she would linger on her knees, in prayer for his safety, and that his days should be ever happy--often with her open Bible before her, but without looking at it, like many honest folks, as if to have it there would work a spell. Her life, as yet, was one of constant dread--the effort to hide her anxiety and sorrow, with her recent love for another, under a hollow smile. She feared even to sleep, lest in a dream the name of Evan might escape her. She would get over all this nonsense in time, her mother thought; for in time people get over everything.