He felt that under pressure of the sudden change in his circumstances, that to avoid surmises and explanations which it would be impossible to make, his wisest mode of action would be to effect an exchange into some other regiment where he was unknown; but his own honour at that time of expected peril required that he should rejoin the Scots Royals, and he could not yet bring his heart to quit them, for the corps had been the home of his family for many generations, quite as much as their ancestral abode of Ardgowrie. Moreover, he was well up the list of lieutenants now. He could recall the emotions with which he first joined them in all the freshness of boyhood, and felt, as a writer says, how "the first burst of life is a glorious thing; youth, health, hope and confidence, and all the vigour they lose in after years: life is then like a splendid river, and we are swimming with the stream--no adverse waves to weary, no billows to buffet us, we hold on our course rejoicing." But all pride of birth, of race, and name had gone completely out of Roland Ruthven for the time. Cards of condolence poured in upon him from the county people, but he returned none; neither did he pay any visits; he felt himself a species of usurper. "A morose fellow he has become," some said; "just like his father in his latter years--moping and melancholy." A letter from his friend Hector Logan roused him a little, and made him think of returning at once to the regiment. It was full of the mess gossip and barrack news generally, and about a ball "where _la belle_ Aurelia had appeared with a new and very remarkable admirer, a Colonel Ithuriel Smash, of the United States army. If the row with the colonists comes off," continued Logan, "some of us may lose our chance of picking up a handsome heiress--for heiresses here are to be had for the asking, some think; I don't. But a girl like Aurelia Darnel, with a stray forty thousand pounds, and having also the frankness and good taste to accept a nice fellow with whom to spend it, is just the kind of girl for my complexion. Logan Braes and that ilk, sound very well; but my pedigree is a powersight longer than my rent-roll." The letter concluded by urging him to rejoin, as an outbreak among the colonists was daily expected. Apart from Aurelia Darnel, concerning whom a change had come over his future now, he felt in every way the necessity for action, and for returning to America, and he felt, too, as if he would go mad, if he lingered longer in Ardgowrie. Aurelia! could he go back to the charm of her society again, with that horrible secret in his mind--the secret the cabinet had contained, and which made him a penniless man! Yet, his thoughts would wander again and again to the girl he had left beyond the broad Atlantic, and doubts rather than hopes, fear rather than joy, crowded upon him, all born of recent events.