'Though here in Earlshaugh just now, what is he, this fellow Lindsay, but a penniless pretender!' exclaimed Sharpe, fired with animosity against Roland; who thus heard his name, his position, and the dearest secrets of his heart openly canvassed by this presumptuous and low-born fellow, and with Annot too—she who, till lately—but he could not put his thoughts in words—they seemed to choke him; and the whole situation was degrading—maddening!
'Well,' chuckled Sharpe, 'he is out of the running now; and then you and I understand each other so well, my little golden-haired pet! so true it is that "when a woman of the world and a man of the world meet, whatever the circumstances may be, or the surroundings, in a moment there is rapport between them, and all flows along easily." I thought when Lindsay fell into the Cleugh,' he added, with a coarse laugh, 'that he had betaken himself off to something that suited him better than fighting the Arabs. But it is long ere the deil dies—now he is well and whole again, and looks every inch like the Lindsay in the gallery, with the buff coat and a dish-cover on his head, that led a brigade of horse against the English at Dunbar. Well, the old place has done with that brood now; and after Deb, Earlshaugh must be mine—mine—shall be ours, Annot, for ever and aye!'
The breeze caught the lace of her sleeve, and, lifting it, showed the perfect and lovely contour of her soft white arm, on which Hawkey Sharpe fastened his coarse lips with a fervour there could be no doubting.
Kissed by him? Roland felt perfectly cured. The desecration, the dishonour, seemed complete! It is but too probable that Mr. Hawkey Sharpe felt the exultation of revenge and triumph in every kiss he took, even though he believed them to be unseen.
Though it was now apparent that she had thrown 'dust' in Roland's eyes by using the name of another, and had thus doubly lied to him, the blow did not fall so unexpectedly, yet the degradation of it was complete.
Hoyle was a myth—a blind to throw him off the right track—and he had been discarded, not for that personage, but for Hawkey Sharpe. This was truly to find
'In the lowest deep a lower deep'
of utter humiliation!
At last they passed onward, and he was again alone.
'I have undergone something like the torture of the rack,' said he with a bitter laugh, when he related to Maude and Hester what he had been compelled to overhear in the summer-house, and the latter thought of that eventful evening at Merlwood, when she so unwittingly had in like manner been compelled to lurk in the shrubbery and hear a revelation that crushed her own heart to the dust.