'How in the name of heaven, Allan, came you to fall into that place?' asked his father.
'I did not fall in,' replied Allan, in a species of husky whisper.
'How then?'
'Holcroft!' was all Allan could utter, when the room seemed to swim round him and he became insensible.
Lord Aberfeldie knew not precisely what to make of the reply, but suspicion gave him a certain clue to what he thought had happened, and the same idea seemed to occur to young Angus, the gillie, who was assisting to undress his master and put him to bed, for his eyes gleamed under their shaggy brows, and he could only mutter from time to time,
'Cead mille maloch!'
A malediction in which Lord Aberfeldie heartily concurred.
When ultimately the Peer learned all that had transpired, the incident of the cheque he had so innocently and generously given Holcroft was completely forgotten. He felt only rage, mingled with utter stupefaction, that a man could act so basely as his recent guest had done. It was altogether out of his calculation and experience of human life in every way.
'But what is to be done now—to search out and punish this malignant scoundrel?' he exclaimed; while Lady Aberfeldie, all her motherly feelings outraged, was for raising fire and sword, and letting loose all the terrors of the law on Holcroft's head.
Lord Aberfeldie, however, after a time thought differently. He had a horror of publicity, of newspaper gossip and scandals, of making his honoured and ancestral home and the affairs of his family a point d'appui, as he said, for such things—a world's wonder, even for a time; and thus he declined to attempt to punish Holcroft for an outrage none had seen him commit.