She left all these pro tem. in the hands of 'mamma' in South Belgravia; and the old lady's letters—changed in tone—were full of suggested delays, doubts, and difficulties in finally fixing a period to her daughter's engagement with Roland; the said letters, of course, bearing on the all-important matter of settlements, which—as circumstances now stood at Earlshaugh—he was utterly at a loss how to make without the advice, more than ever, of the family agent, old Mr. M'Wadsett of Thistle Court.
Meanwhile, full of themselves and their own affairs, and of their marriage, which was now fixed for an early day, and before Jack Elliot's return to Egypt, Maude and the latter were less observant than Hester of what transpired at Earlshaugh during Roland's convalescence.
Attended by old Buckle, Annot had gone to see the hounds throw off, and in following the field for some little way contrived to lose her venerable groom, whom no doubt she deemed a bore; and while he was searching for her hopelessly over a Fifeshire muir she came home to one of the park gates attended by a gentleman in hunting costume, with whom she seemed on pretty intimate terms—a circumstance which, when mentioned, she laughingly explained away.
But at a subsequent period she was seen by Maude and Hester riding in the park with one supposed to be the same stranger, but at a considerable distance.
The two girls could see that the pair were going slowly together—perhaps their cattle were tired, but, as Maude said, that was no reason why they should ride so near each other that his right hand could rest on her saddle-bow.
'Who is he? I don't like this,' said Maude.
But Hester remained silent and full of her own thoughts.
Other meetings between these two became whispered about, rather intangibly, however, and then rumour gave the gentleman the name of Hoyle.
'Hoyle?' thought Hester, and she remembered Annot's confidence about her Belgravian admirer, 'the Detrimental' Bob Hoyle.
Annot blushed deeply and painfully with a suffusion that dyed her snowy neck and face to the temples, and which was some time in passing away, when questioned on this matter by Maude, who she knew mistrusted her, and falteringly she asked: