'Wellwood—Colville!' said Mary, inquiringly. 'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Deroubigne, but are there two officers of that name in the Scots Guards?'
'No, only one—Wellwood, who added Colville to his name as successor to a large property—your cousin, in fact—and the peerage he claims, Lord Colville of Ochiltree.'
A light seemed to break on Mary; she knew not what to think; she had no voice to reply. She felt that she changed colour, while a sudden dryness came over her lips and tongue.
She heard the door-bell ring, and knew that Mrs. Deroubigne was speaking again, yet scarcely understood what she said.
'He starts for India in a day or two, and is to lunch with me this afternoon. To meet you—a cousin so charming—will be quite a little surprise for him; and here he comes!' she added, as the door was opened, and Colville—the identical Colville of Birkwoodbrae—was ushered in!
CHAPTER IX.
WAS IT NOT A DREAM?
He came forward through the long drawing-room with his usual easy bearing, his head well set up, his military air, and calm, unflinching eyes, which dilated on seeing Mary Wellwood, and then he paused.
For fully a minute there was dead silence—the silence of dumb bewilderment, and Mary felt how loudly and painfully her heart was beating; while to both Colville and Mrs. Deroubigne it was apparent how much she was agitated, thereby involving a secret which the latter was yet to learn.
Mary had felt that she had cause to be indignant and to feign indifference. As the lover who had trifled with her, as she thought, and gone to the very verge of a declaration or proposal, and then paused, and he—the obnoxious cousin, the heir of entail, one and the same person—stood before her, in her eyes of deep violet blue there came for a brief space the light of a sudden determination, with something of a horrified stare; but ere Mrs. Deroubigne could approach an explanation or introduction, Colville sprang towards the pale and trembling girl, and took both her hands within his own.