John Erskine was on the steps leading to the great central entrance when the carriage from Lindores drove up at the door. It was not by chance that he found himself there, for he was aware of the intended visit; and with the sombre attraction which the sight of a rival and an adversary has for a man, felt himself drawn towards the scene in which an act of this drama in which his happiness was involved, was going on. He hurried down before the footman to get to the carriage-door, and hand the ladies out. He had seen them several times since that day when Lady Lindores, unused to deception, had allowed the secret to slip from her. And he had accustomed himself to the fact that Millefleurs, who was in person and aspect so little alarming, but in other ways the most irresistible of rivals, was in full possession of the field before him. But John, with quickened insight, had also perceived that no decisive step had as yet been taken, and with infinite relief was able to persuade himself that Edith as yet was no party to the plot, and was unaware what was coming. He saw in a moment now that some important change had come over the state of affairs. Lady Lindores avoided his eye, but Edith looked at him, he thought, with a sort of appeal in her face,—a question,—a wondering demand, full of mingled defiance and deprecation. So much in one look!—and yet there seemed to him even more than all this. What had happened? Millefleurs was conscious too. There was a self-satisfaction about him more evident, more marked than usual. He put out his chest a little more. He held his head higher, though he refrained from any special demonstration in respect to Edith. There was an air about him as of a man who had taken some remarkable initiative. His very step touched the ground with more weight: his round eyes contemplated all things with a more bland and genial certainty of being able to solve every difficulty. And Rintoul had a watchful look as of a man on his guard—a keen spectator vigilantly attentive to everything; uncertain whether even yet he might not be called upon to interfere. All this John Erskine saw at one glance,—not clearly as it is set down here, but vaguely, with confused perceptions which he could not disentangle, which conveyed no distinct information to his mind, but only a warning, an intimation which set every vein of him tingling. Lady Lindores would not meet his eye; but Edith looked at him with that strange look of question—How much do you know? it seemed to say. What do you suspect? and with a flash of indignation—Do you suspect me? Do you doubt me? He thought there was all this, or something like it, in her eyes; and yet he could not tell what they meant, nor, so far as she was concerned, what length her knowledge went. He met her look with one in which another question bore the chief part. But it was much less clear to Edith what that question meant. They were all as conscious as it was possible for human creatures each shut up within the curious envelope of his own identity, imperfectly comprehending any other, to be. The air tingled with meaning round them. They were all aware, strangely, yet naturally, of standing on the edge of fate.

Lady Caroline and her husband received this party in the great drawing-room which was used on state occasions: everything had been thrown open professedly that Lord Millefleurs should see, but really that Lord Millefleurs should be dazzled by, the splendour which Torrance devoutly believed to be unrivalled. It was in order that he might see the effect of all the velvet and brocade, all the gilding and carving, upon the stranger, that he had waited to receive the party from Lindores with his wife, a thing quite unusual to him; and he was in high expectation and good-humour, fully expecting to be flattered and gratified. There was a short pause of mutual civilities to begin with, during which Torrance was somewhat chilled and affronted to see that the little Marquis remained composed, and displayed no awe, though he looked about him with his quick little round eyes.

"You will have heard, Lady Caroline, how I have lost any little scrap of reputation I ever had," Millefleurs said, clasping his plump hands. "I am no shot: it is true, though I ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it. And I don't care to follow flying things on foot. If there was a balloon indeed! I am an impostor at this season. I am occupying the place of some happy person who might make a large bag every day."

"But there is room for all those happy persons without disturbing you—who have other qualities," said Carry, with her soft pathetic smile. There was a little tremor about her, and catching of her breath, for she did not know at what moment might occur that name which always agitated her, however she might fortify herself against it.

"If not at Lindores, there's always plenty of room at Tinto," said Torrance, with ostentatious openness. "There's room for a regiment here. I have a few fellows coming for the partridges, but not half enough to fill the house. Whenever you like, you and your belongings, as many as you please, whether it's servants—or guardians," Torrance said, with his usual rude laugh.

Something like an electric shock ran round the company. Millefleurs was the only one who received it without the smallest evidence of understanding what it was. He looked up in Torrance's face with an unmoved aspect. "I don't travel with a suite," he said, "though I am much obliged to you all the same. It is my father who carries all sorts of people about with him. And I love my present quarters," said the little Marquis, directing a look towards Lady Lindores of absolute devotion. "I will not go away unless I am sent away. A man who has knocked about the world knows when he is well off. I will go to Erskine, and be out of the way during the hours when I am de trop."

"Erskine is filling his house too, I suppose," Torrance said. And then having got all that was practicable in the shape of offence out of this subject, he proposed that they should make the tour of what had been always called the state apartments at Tinto. "There's a few things to show," he said, affecting humility; "not much to you who have been about the world as you say, but still a few things that we think something of in this out-of-the-way place." Then he added, "Lady Car had better be the showman, for she knows more about them than I do—though I was born among them." This was the highest possible pleasure to Pat Torrance. To show off his possessions, to which he professed to be indifferent, with an intended superiority in his rude manliness to anything so finicking, by means of his wife—his proudest and finest possession of all—was delightful to him. He lounged after them, keeping close to the party, ready with all his being to enjoy Lady Car's description of the things that merited admiration. He was in high good-humour, elated with the sense of his position as her husband and the owner of all this grandeur. He felt that the little English lord would now see what a Scotch country gentleman could be, what a noble distinguished wife he could get for himself, and what a house he could bring her to. Unfortunately, Lord Millefleurs, whose delight was to talk about Californian miners and their habitudes, was familiar with greater houses than Tinto, and had been born in the purple, and slept on rose-leaves all his life. He admired politely what he was evidently expected to admire, but he gave vent to no enthusiasm. When they came to the great dining-room, with its huge vases and marble pillars, he looked round upon it with a countenance of complete seriousness, not lightened by any gratification. "Yes—I see: everything is admirably in keeping," he said; "an excellent example of the period. It is so seldom one sees this sort of thing nowadays. Everybody has begun to try to improve, don't you know; and the mieux is always the ennemi du bien. This is all of a piece, don't you know. It is quite perfect of its kind."

"What does the little beggar mean?" it was now Torrance's turn to say to himself. It sounded, no doubt, like praise, but his watchful suspicion and jealousy were roused. He tried his usual expedient of announcing how much it had cost; but Millefleurs—confound the little beggar!—received the intimation with perfect equanimity. He was not impressed. He made Torrance a little bow, and said with his lisp, "Yeth, very cothtly alwayth—the materials are all so expensive, don't you know." But he could not be brought to say anything more. Even Lady Caroline felt depressed by his gravity; for insensibly, though she ought to have known better, she had got to feel that all the wealth of Tinto—its marbles, its gilding, its masses of ornate plate, and heavy decorations—must merit consideration. They had been reckoned among the things for which she had been sacrificed—they were part of her price, so to speak: and if they were not splendid and awe-inspiring, then her sacrifice had indeed been made in vain. Poor Lady Caroline was not in a condition to meet with any further discouragement; and to feel that her husband was beginning to lose his air of elated good-humour, gave an additional tremor to the nervousness which possessed her. She knew what he would say about "your fine friends," and how he would swear that no such visitors should ever be asked to his house again. She went on mechanically saying her little lesson by heart, pointing out all the great pieces of modern SÈvres and Dresden. Her mind was full of miserable thoughts. She wanted to catch John Erskine's eye, to put an imploring question to him with eyes or mouth. "Is he coming?" This was what she wanted to say. But she could not catch John Erskine's eye, who was gloomily walking behind her by the side of Edith saying nothing. Lady Caroline could not help remarking that neither of these two said a word. Lady Lindores and Rintoul kept up a kind of skirmishing action around them, trying now to draw one, now the other, into conversation, and get them apart. But the two kept by each other like a pair in a procession—yet never spoke.

"The period, dear lady?" said Millefleurs,—"I am not up to the last novelties of classification, nor scientific, don't you know; but I should say Georgian, late Georgian, or verging upon the times of the Royal William"—he gave a slight shiver as he spoke, perhaps from cold, for the windows were all open, and there was a draught. "But perfect of its kind," he added with a little bow, and a seriousness which was more disparaging than abuse. Even Lady Carry smiled constrainedly, and Torrance, with a start, awoke to his sense of wrong, and felt that he could bear no more.

"George or Jack," he cried, "I don't know anything about periods; this I do know, that it ran away with a great deal of money—money none of us would mind having in our pockets now." He stared at Rintoul as he spoke, but even Rintoul looked as if he were indifferent, which galled the rich man more and more. "My Lady Countess and my Lord Marquis," he said, with an elaborate mocking bow, "I'll have to ask you to excuse me. I've got—something to do that I thought I could get off—but I can't, don't you know;" and here he laughed again, imitating as well as he was able the seraphic appeal to the candour of his hearers, which Millefleurs was so fond of making. The tone, the words, the aspect of the man, taught Millefleurs sufficiently (who was the only stranger) that he had given offence; and the others drew closer, eager to make peace for Carry's sake, who was smiling with the ordinary effort of an unhappy wife to make the best of it and represent to the others that it was only her husband's "way."

But Torrance's ill-humour was not as usual directed towards his wife. When he looked at her, his face, to her great astonishment, softened. It was a small matter that did it; the chief reason was that he saw a look of displeasure—of almost offence—upon his wife's countenance too. She was annoyed with the contemptible little English lord as much as he was. This did not take away his rage, but it immediately gave him that sense that his wife was on his side, for which the rough fellow had always longed—and altered his aspect at once. As he stood looking at them, with his large light eyes projecting from their sockets, a flush of offence on his cheeks, a forced laugh on his mouth, his face softened all in a moment. This time she was no longer the chief antagonist to be subdued, but his natural supporter and champion. He laid his heavy hand upon her shoulder, with a pride of proprietorship which for once she did not seem to contest. "Lady Car," he said, "she's my deputy: she'll take care of you better than I."

Lady Caroline, with an involuntary, almost affectionate response, put her hand on his arm. "Don't go," she said, lifting her face to him with an eloquence of suppressed and tremulous emotion all about her, which indeed had little reference to this ill-humour of his, but helped to dignify it, and take away the air of trivial rage and mortification which had been too evident at first. Lady Lindores, too, made a step forward with the same intention. He stood and looked at them with a curious medley of feeling, touched at once by the pleasure of a closer approach to his wife, and by a momentary tragic sense of being entirely outside of this group of people to whom he was so closely related. They were his nearest connections, and yet he did not belong to them, never could belong to them! They were of a different species—another world altogether. Lady Car could take care of them. She could understand them, and know their ways; but not he. They were all too fine for him, out of his range, thinking different thoughts, pretending even (for it must surely have been mere pretence) to despise his house, which everybody knew was the great house of the district, infinitely grander than the castle or any other place in the county. He was deeply wounded by this unlooked-for cutting away of the ground from under his feet: but Lady Car was on his side. She could manage them though he could not. Not one of them was equal to her, and it was to him that she belonged. He laughed again, but the sound of his laugh was not harsh as it had been before. "No, no; Lady Car will take care of you," he said.

"I hope," said Millefleurs in his mellifluous tones, "that it is not this intrusion of ours that is sending Mr Torrance away. I know what a nuisance people are coming to luncheon in the middle of an occupied day. Send us away, Lady Caroline, or rather send me away, who am the stranger. Erskine will take me with him to Dalrulzian, and another day I shall return and see the rest of your splendours."

"Mr Torrance has really business," said Carry; "mamma will show you the other rooms, while I speak to my husband." She went swiftly, softly, after him, as his big figure disappeared in the long vista of the great dining-room. After a moment's pause of embarrassment, the rest went on. Carry hurried trembling after her tyrant. When they were out of hearing she called him anxiously. "Oh, don't go, Pat. How do you think I can entertain such a party when they know that you are offended, and will not stay?"

"You will get on better without me," he said. "I can't stand these fellows and their airs. It isn't any fault of yours, Lady Car. Come, I'm pleased with you. You've stood by your own this time, I will say that for you. But they're your kind, they're not mine. Dash the little beggar, what a cheek he has! I'm not used to hear the house run down. But never mind, I don't care a pin,—and it's not your fault this time, Car," he said, with a laugh, touching her cheek with his finger with a touch which was half a blow and half a caress. This was about as much tenderness as he was capable of showing. Carry followed him to the door, and saw him plunge down the great steps, and turn in the direction of the stables. Perhaps she was not sorry to avoid all further occasion of offence. She returned slowly through the long, vulgar, costly rooms—a sigh of relief came from her overladen heart; but relief in one point made her but more painfully conscious of another. In the distance Millefleurs was examining closely all the ormolu and finery. As she came in sight of the party, walking slowly like the worn creature she was, feeling as if all the chances of life were over for her, and she herself incomparably older, more weary and exhausted than any of them, and her existence a worn-out thing apart from the brighter current of every day, there remained in her but one flicker of personal anxiety, one terror which yet could make everything more bitter. The group was much the same as when she left them,—Lady Lindores with Millefleurs, Edith and John silent behind them, Rintoul in a sort of general spectatorship, keeping watch upon the party. Carry touched John Erskine's arm furtively and gave him an entreating look. He turned round to her alarmed.

"Lady Caroline! can I do anything? What is it?" he said.

She drew him back into a corner of the great room with its marble pillars. She was so breathless that she could hardly speak. "It is nothing—it is only—a question. Are you expecting—people—at Dalrulzian?"

Carry's soft eyes had expanded to twice their size, and looked at him out of two caves of anxiety and hollow paleness. She gave him her hand unawares, as if asking him by that touch more than words could say. John was moved to the heart.

"I think not—I hope not—I have no answer. No, no, there will be no one," he said.

She sank down into a chair with a faint smile. "You will think me foolish—so very foolish—it is nothing to me. But—I am always so frightened," said poor Carry, with the first pretence that occurred to her, "when there is any dispeace."

"There will be no dispeace," said John, "in any case. But I am sure—I can be certain—there will be no one there."

She smiled upon him again, and waved her hand to him to leave her. "I will follow you directly," she said.

What emotions there were in this little group! Carry sat with her hand upon her heart, which fluttered still, getting back her breath. Every remission of active pain seems a positive good. She sat still, feeling the relief and ease flow over her like a stream of healing to her very feet. She would be saved the one encounter which she could not bear; and then for the moment he was absent, and there would be no struggle to keep him in good-humour, or to conceal from others his readiness to offend and take offence. Was this all the semblance of happiness that remained for Carry? For the moment she was satisfied with it, and took breath, and recovered a little courage, and was thankful in that deprivation of all things—thankful that no positive pain was to be added to make everything worse; and that a brief breathing-time was hers for the moment, an hour of rest.

Edith looked at John as he came back. She had lingered, half waiting for him, just as if he had been her partner in a procession. In that moment of separation Rintoul allowed himself to go off guard. She looked at John, and almost for the first time spoke. "Carry has been talking to you," she said hastily, in an undertone.

"Yes,—about visitors—people who might be coming to stay with me."

"Is any one coming to stay with you?" she asked, quickly.

"Nobody," John replied with fervour; "nor shall at any risk."

This all passed in a moment while Rintoul was off guard. She looked at him again, wistfully, gratefully, and he being excited by his own feelings, and by sympathy with all this excitement which breathed around him in so many currents, was carried beyond all prudence, beyond all intention. "I will do anything," he said, "to please you, and serve her, you know. It is nothing to offer. I am nobody in comparison with others; but what I have is all yours, and at your service,—the little that it is——"

"Oh," said Edith, in a mere breath of rapid, almost inaudible, response, "it is too much; it is too much." She did not know what she said.

"Nothing is too much. I am not asking any return. I am not presumptuous; but I am free to give. Nobody can stop me from doing that," said John, not much more clearly. It was all over in a moment. The people within a few yards of them scarcely knew they had exchanged a word; even Rintoul did not suspect any communication that was worth preventing. And next moment they separated. John, panting and breathless, as if he had been running a race, went up to where Millefleurs was discoursing upon some bit of upholstery, and stood by in the shelter of this discussion to let himself cool down. Edith kept behind in the shelter of her mother. And just then Carry came softly out of the door of the great dining-room from behind the marble pillars, having recovered herself, and called back the smile to her face. In the midst of all these emotions, Millefleurs talked smoothly on.

"My people," he said, "have a place down in Flintshire that is a little like this, but not so perfect. My grandfather, or whoever it was, lost confidence before it was done, and mixed it up. But here, don't you know, the confidence has been sublime; no doubt has been allowed to intrude. They say that in Scotland you are so absolute—all or nothing, don't you know. Whether in furniture or anything else, how fine that is!" said the little Marquis, turning up his palms. He looked quite absorbed in his subject, and as calm as a man in gingerbread. Nevertheless, he was the only person to notice that slight passage of conversation sotto voce, and the breathless condition in which John reached him. What had he been doing to put him out of breath?

When the house had been inspected, the party went to luncheon—a very sumptuous meal, which was prepared in the great dining-room, and was far too splendid for an ordinary family party such as this was. John, whose excitement had rather increased than diminished, and who felt that he had altogether committed himself, without chance or hope of any improved relations, was not able to subdue himself to the point of sitting down at table. He took his leave in spite of the protests of the party. His heart was beating loudly, his pulses all clanging in his ears like a steam-engine. He did not get the chance even of a glance from Edith, who said good-bye to him in a tremulous voice, and did not look up. He saw her placed by the side of Millefleurs at table, as he turned away. He had all the modesty of genuine feeling,—a modesty which is sometimes another name for despair. Why should she take any notice of him? He had no right to aspire so high. Nothing to give, as he said, except as a mere offering—a flower laid at her feet,—not a gift which was capable of a return. He said to himself that, so far as this went, there should be no deception in his mind. He would give his gift—it was his pleasure to give it—lavishly, with prodigal abundance; as a prince should give, expecting no return. In this he would have the better of all of them, he said to himself, as he went through the great house, where, except in the centre of present entertainment, all was silent like a deserted place. He would give more liberally, more magnificently, than any duke or duke's son, for he would give all, and look for nothing in return. The feeling which accompanied this Élan of entire self-devotion and abandonment of selfish hope gave him something of the same calm of exhaustion which was in Carry's soul. He seemed to have come to something final, something from which there was no recovery. He could not sit down at table with them; but he could not go away any more than he could stay. He went out through the vacant hall, where nobody took any notice of his going or coming, and emerged upon the wide opening of the plateau, sheltered by fir-trees, upon which the house stood dominating the landscape. His was the only shadow that crossed the sunshine in front of the huge mass of building which was so noiseless outside, so full of life and emotion within. He could not go away any more than he could stay. He wandered to the fringe of trees which clothed the edge of the steep cliff above the river, and sat there on the bank gazing down on the depths below, till the sound of voices warned him that the party was moving from the dining-room. Then he hastened away to avoid them, taking the less frequented road which led by the Scaur. He had passed that dangerous spot, but the way was still narrow between the bushes, when he heard the hoofs of Torrance's great black horse resounding upon the path. Pat was returning home after what had evidently been a wild gallop, for the powerful animal had his black coat flecked with foam, and was chewing the bit in his mouth. Torrance had almost passed without perceiving John, but catching a glimpse of him as he pushed along, suddenly drew up, making his horse rear and start. He had an air of heat and suppressed passion which corresponded with the foam and dishevelled looks of the horse. "Hollo!" he cried, "you, Erskine, have they broken up?" and sat swaying his great bulk with the impatient movements of the fagged yet fiery beast. John answered briefly, and was about to pass on, when Torrance gave him what was intended to be a playful poke with the end of his whip. "When's your visitor coming?" he said, with his harsh laugh.

"My visitor! I expect no visitor," said John, stepping back with anger which he could scarcely restrain. It was all he could do not to seize the whip, and snatch it out of the other's hand. But neither the narrow path, nor the excited state in which both men were, was safe for any scuffle. John restrained himself with an effort.

"Oh yes, you are!" cried Torrance; "you let it out once, you know—you can't take in me. But I'm the last man in the world to find fault. Let him come! We'll have him up to Tinto, and make much of him. I told you so before."

"You seem to know my arrangements better than I know them myself," John said, white with suppressed fury. "I have no visitor coming. Permit me to know my own affairs."

"Ah! so you've forbidden him to come! Let me tell you, Mr Erskine, that that's the greatest insult of all. Why shouldn't he come? he, or any fellow? Do you think I'm afraid of Lady Car?" and here his laugh rang into all the echoes. "Not a bit; I think more of her than that. You're putting a slight on her when you ask any man not to come. Do you hear?"

"I hear perfectly, and would hear if you spoke lower. There's enough of this, Torrance. I suppose it's your way, and you don't intend to be specially objectionable—but I am not going to be questioned so, nor will I take the lie from any man," cried John, with rising passion. There was scarcely room for him to stand in safety from the horse's hoofs, and he was compelled to draw back among the bushes as the great brute pranced and capered.

"What! will you fight?" cried Torrance, with another laugh; "that's all exploded nowadays—that's a business for 'Punch.' Not that I mind: any way you please. Look here! here's a fist that would soon master you. But it's a joke, you know, nowadays; a joke, for 'Punch.'"

"So much the worse," cried John, hotly. "It was the only way of keeping in order a big bully like you."

"Oh, that's what you call me! If there was any one to see fair play—to you (for I'm twice your size)—I'd let Blackie go, and give you your fill of that."

John grasped instinctively at the bridle of the big black horse, which seemed charging down upon him; and for a moment the two men gazed at each other, over the tossing foam-flecked head, big eyeballs, and churning mouth. Then John let go the bridle at which he had caught, with an exclamation of scorn.

"Another time for that, if that is what you want," he said.

"No," cried the other, looking back, as the horse darted past,—"no, that's not what I want; you're an honest fellow—you shall say what you please. We'll shake hands——" The horse carrying him off lost the rest of the words in the clang of jingling reins and half-maddened hoofs.

John went on very rapidly, excited beyond measure by the encounter. His face was flushed and hot; his hat, which had been knocked off his head, was stained with the damp red soil. He had torn his sleeve in the clutch he had made at the bridle. He dashed along the narrow road at a wild pace to calm himself down by rapid movement. A little way down he encountered a keeper crossing the road, who disappeared into the woods after a curious glance at his excited looks and torn coat. Further on, as he came out of the gate, he met, to his great astonishment, old Rolls, plodding along towards Tinto in company with another man, who met him at the gate. "Bless me, sir! what's the maitter? Ye cannot walk the highroad like that!" was the first exclamation of old Rolls.

"Like what? Oh, my sleeve! I tore it just now on a—on a—catching a runaway horse. The brute was wild, I thought he would have had me down." There was nothing in this that was absolutely untrue, at least nothing that it was not permissible to say in the circumstances, but the explanation was elaborate, as John felt. "And what are you doing here?" he said, peremptorily. "What do you want at Tinto?" It seemed almost a personal offence to him to find Rolls there.

"I have something to say to Tinto, sir, with all respect. My father was a tenant of his father—a small tenant, not to call a farmer, something between that and a cotter—and I'm wanting to speak a good word for my brother-in-law, John Tamson, that you will maybe mind."

Upon this the man by Rolls's side, who had been inspecting John curiously, at last persuaded himself to touch, not to take off, his hat, and to say: "Ay, sir, I'm John Tamson. I was the first to see ye the day ye cam' first to Dalrulzian. I hae my wife ower by that's good at her needle. Maybe ye'll step in and she'll shue your coat-sleeve for you. You canna gang like that all the gate to Dalrulzian. There's no saying who ye may meet."

John Erskine had not been awakened before to the strangeness of his appearance. He looked down upon his torn coat with a vague alarm. It was a start of the black horse while he held its bridle which had torn the sleeve out of its socket. While he was looking at this, with a disturbed air, the lodge-gates were thrown open and the Lindores's carriage came through. Lady Lindores waved her hand to him, then bent forward to look at him with sudden surprise and alarm; but the horses were fresh, and swept along, carrying the party out of sight. Millefleurs was alone with the ladies in the carriage—that John noticed without knowing why.

A minute after, accepting John Tamson's offer of service, he went over with him to his cottage, where the wife immediately got her needle and thread, with much lamentation over the gentleman's "gude black coat." "Bless me, sir! it must have been an ill-willy beast that made ye give your arm a skreed like that," she said: and John felt that his hand was unsteady and his nerves quivering. After all, it was no such great matter. He could not understand how it was that he had been agitated to such an extent by an encounter so slight.