A few minutes more and the pair were tooling down the avenue in a smart mail phaeton, drawn by a pair of fine, high-stepping dark greys. So Lord Aberfeldie drove 'the son of his oldest friend' to the station, and, as the distance increased between himself and Dundargue, Holcroft's spirits revived, as if nothing had happened there at all; he actually said,
'And you think to find Allan at Loganlee?'
'I haven't a doubt of it—some tift with Olive, no doubt.'
'Au revoir, Lord Aberfeldie! and a thousand thanks for all your kindness to me—never shall forget it, by Jove! but I shall have the pleasure of seeing you all again in town, of course.'
To this expression of pleasure Lord Aberfeldie made no response, but shook Holcroft's hand, whipped up his greys, and was off, thinking,
'I am glad he has gone; he looks sadly strange and queer, poor fellow.'
Holcroft was intensely relieved when the peer had left, and, making straight for the railway buffet, imbibed glass after glass of pretty potent Glenlivat, conversing affably the while with the young damsel thereat.
'Of what are you thinking, sir, that you stare at me so?' she asked, with a giggle.
'Only that your mother must have been a sweetly pretty girl!'
The train was late; thus he had to spend some time in staring aimlessly at the flaming advertisements on the station wall—an Anglo-American fashion now spread to Scotland—advertisements of some one's cocoa, some one's corsets, some one's whisky, and so forth; and, after glancing with a contemptuous malediction at the thick bible left by the Scottish something society in the little waiting-room, he smoked a cigar, had himself weighed, had a brandy and soda, had some more chaff with the pretty girl at the buffet, till the night train came snorting and clanking in, when he took his seat, spread his rugs, and was off, as he thought, to security at last!