Evan Cameron loved Allan Graham dearly as a friend, and had naturally a desire to be on the best terms with him as the brother of the girl to whom he had given all his heart. Thus, while meeting him daily on parade and at mess, he was sorely puzzled to account for the change he felt in Allan's manner to himself, as he knew not that the latter resented the 'Mrs. Cameron' episode as an insult to Eveline, his sister.
'I presume you know that my sister is on the point of marriage—indeed, that the day is fixed?' said Allan, rather grimly, to him one day as he recalled the circumstance of how Evan greatly admired, to say the least of it, Eveline, and how her heart had responded thereto.
Cameron made no reply, but a sudden pallor overspread his handsome, bronzed face, and all his studied calmness forsook him, while the memory of past hopes and joys shook his heart as if with a tempest of remembrance; but, stooping and half turning away to conceal the expression of his face, he attempted to light a cigar.
'What a sly fellow—a cunning dog—you are!' said Allan, with irritation of tone.
'In what way do you mean, Allan?' asked Cameron.
'Mean! How dare you ask, after your open admiration of my sister, Miss Graham, in a man in your position?'
Cameron mistook his meaning; but the mistake failed to rouse any pride, as his heart was too crushed and sore just then.
'Allan!' he exclaimed, as tears almost welled up in his honest eyes, 'I loved her—I love her still—God alone knows how well, how desperately, and how hopelessly.'
'Hopelessly indeed,' responded Allan, his cheek now aflame with anger; 'and you dare to tell me this after all that we know of yourself and Mrs. Cameron?'
It was now Cameron's turn to look indignant and astonished; but in a few words he explained all.