'A separation,' said he, laughing malevolently, 'a quarrel between that fellow and you?'
'Yes,' she replied with flashing eyes.
'Can nothing soften this hostility towards me?' he asked after a pause.
'Nothing. I never wish to see your face or hear your voice again.'
'Well, if you leave Craigengowan simply to avoid me I shall certainly tell your grandmother the reason; and how will you like that?'
'You will?'
'By heaven, I will! That he and you alike resented my regard for you?'
To say that Shafto loved Finella, with all her beauty, would be what a writer calls a 'blasphemy on the master-passion;' but he admired her immensely, longed for her, and more particularly for her money, as a protection—a barrier against future and unseen contingencies.
At his threat Finella grew pale with anticipated annoyance and mortification; but in pure dread of Shafto's malevolence, and for the other reasons given, she did not hasten her preparations for departure, and ere long the arrival of a new guest at Craigengowan decided her on remaining, for this guest was one for whom she conceived a sudden and lasting affection, and with whom she found ties and sympathies in common.
After being out most part of a day riding, Shafto returned in the evening, and, throwing his horse's bridle to a groom, was ascending the staircase to his own room, when, framed as it were in the archway of a corridor, he saw, to his utter bewilderment, the face and figure of Dulcie Carlyon!