The polite or politic coldness he had displayed of late, was thus very different to the bearing towards her which the girl, from his past conduct, had every right to expect. She was piqued and rather prepared for a flirtation with Logan or any one else; and thus at balls or elsewhere a lot of men were always hovering about her, among whom was too often the obnoxious Colonel Smash, the low state of whose exchequer would have made an alliance with the heiress of St. Eustache a very pleasant speculation. Roland, with his pay only, or little more--the sum he accorded to himself out of the rents of Ardgowrie, and meant to refund--felt that he had no right to ask her hand, or seek to lure her from amid objects and associations endeared to her by taste and her earlier years, and, more than all, from the luxuries by which she was surrounded. And yet it was with him, as it is with some others, barriers to his hopes and wishes only made these wishes and hopes all the more keen; and thus whenever he left her he would pause and commune with himself from time to time, conning over her words and her glances, as if to glean therefrom whether he was indifferent to her or not. The doubts and fears that agitated Roland's heart were painful and poignant; had he been as he ought to have been, Laird of Ardgowrie, fortalice and manor, wood and mountain, with what honest confidence would he have told her of the love he dared not speak of _now_! Yet it was so sweet to dream on; for the artless simplicity of Aurelia's manner, and the freshness of her untutored heart, had led him to know and feel that the greatest personal attractions may be second to excelling qualities in the girl one loves. When he entered the familiar drawing-room, with its air of culture and wealth, pictures, statuettes, and bronzes, and saw from the windows the familiar view he might now be looking upon for the last time, Aurelia did not hear him announced. She was alone, seated at the piano, and singing one of those _Chansons Canadiennes_, as they are named, which she had learned from her mother, for among the French Canadians of all ranks there linger yet the _chansons_, _refrains_, and _barcarolles_, brought from Brittany and La Vendée by their ancestors three hundred years ago; and when Roland suddenly appeared by her side, she started, and arose, surprise mingling with her smile of pleasure, as the hour was an unusual one for a visit. "I do not ask you to resume your singing, Miss Darnel," said Roland, in a voice that lacked all firmness, "as I have but a few minutes to remain with you, and these may, perhaps, be the last we shall ever spend together." Her glance drooped, then she lifted her long, silky and most killing lashes, and Roland gazed with unconcealed tenderness into her eyes, which were of that deeply dark blue, which at times and in some lights, especially by night, seem almost black. "You are, then, going to India?" she asked, in a breathless voice.