Left alone, Malet wiped his bald forehead and sank into a chair. "Pooh!" he muttered, striving to reassure himself. "He can do nothing. I am his cousin. My honor is his honor. I'm in pretty deep water, but I'll get ashore yet. There's only one way--only one!" Then Mr. Malet proceeded to cogitate upon that one and only way, and the obstacles which prevented his taking it. His thoughts for the next half hour did not make for peace of mind altogether. Meanwhile, Captain Burton, fuming with rage, strode on through the green woods to the lady of his love. They had arranged to meet and discuss the result of this interview. As Mr. Scarse did not approve of his attentions toward his daughter, the cottage where she dwelt was forbidden ground to Harold. He was compelled, therefore, to meet her by stealth in the woods. But the glorious summer day made that no hardship. He knew the precise spot where Brenda would be waiting for him--under an ancient oak, which had seen many generations of lovers--and he increased his pace that he might the sooner unburden to her his mind. As he left the park and made his way through the orchards which surrounded Chippingholt, he saw Mr. Scarse no great distance away. "That's a queer get-up the old man's got on," muttered Harold, perplexed at the wholly unusual combination of a snuff-colored greatcoat and a huge black scarf. "Never saw him in that rig before. I wonder what it means!" As he came up within a dozen paces of the thin, white-haired figure, he was more than ever puzzled, for he noticed that the black scarf was of crape--there must have been several yards of it wound round the old man's neck. It was undoubtedly Mr. Scarse. There was no mistaking that clean-shaven, parchment-like visage. Burton took off his cap in greeting, but did not speak. He knew the old man was not well-disposed toward him. Mr. Scarse looked blankly at him and pressed on without sign of recognition; and even though he had half expected it, Captain Burton felt mortified at this cut direct. "Brenda and I will have to marry without his consent," he thought; "never mind!" But he did mind. To marry a girl in the face of parental opposition was all against his inclinations. The future looked dismal enough to him at the moment, and his spirits were only further depressed as the sky began to blacken over with portentous clouds. Impressionable as he was, this endorsement of nature was full of meaning for him in his then pessimistic frame of mind. The sunshine faded to a cold grey, the leaves overhead shivered, and seemed to wither at the breath of the chill wind; and when he caught sight of Brenda's white dress under the oak, her figure looked lonely and forlorn. The darkling sky, the bitter wind, the stealthy meeting, the solitary figure--all these things struck at his heart, and it was a pale and silent lover who kissed his sweetheart under the ancient tree. His melancholy communicated itself to Brenda.