'As you please, Captain Dalton; but be assured we have not seen the last of each other yet,' she replied, with one of her most brilliant and coquettish smiles, as he bowed himself out; and so ended an interview which both felt had included the most singular bit of love-making they had ever been involved in.
'By Jove, she is an enigma,' muttered Dalton; but she had no such thought of him.
CHAPTER XIV.
'SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!'
'Captain Goring, let it be distinctly understood that from this day forward your visits to Chilcote cease, and let all this be forgotten,' were the words with which Sir Ranald accosted Goring one forenoon.
'Forgotten!' exclaimed the latter, rising from his seat, hat in hand.
Sir Ranald had suddenly come in and found him seated with Alison, paying one of his usual visits, as Goring wished them to be thought, and the old man was greatly ruffled, even exasperated.
'As for my daughter, sir, I forbid her to speak to you again, to recognise you anywhere, to mention your name, or even think of you!' he continued, with increasing vehemence, lashing himself to fresh anger with the sound of his own words. 'D—n it, sir, in my younger days the pistol would have put an effectual stop to your uncalled-for interloping.'
'Or yours, and your coldness of heart,' replied Goring, who was so confounded by this sudden outburst of wrath as scarcely to know what he said.
He was naturally a proud-spirited young fellow, and rather prompt to ire. He blushed scarlet to the temples at these most affronting speeches; but they gave him double pain when he saw the wan, blanched, and imploring face of poor Alison, whose heart was wrung by the words and bearing of her father—a bearing all so unlike his own usually cold, stately, and aristocratic self.