From that moment the Whaup grew more serious, and ceased his boyish tricks.
"I think your cousin is very fond of you," said the good-natured Lady Drum to Coquette. "Don't you think that some day or other he will ask you to marry him?"
"It may be," replied Coquette dubiously. "I do not know, because my uncle has not spoken to me of any such thing; but he may think it a good marriage, and arrange it." A French view of marriage that greatly astonished Lady Drum.
The new sense of responsibility that had come to the Whaup determined him to return at once to Glasgow, and resume his studies. When Coquette heard this she became sad and wistful.
"I hope," she said, "I shall be always the same to you, if you come back in one year--two years--ten years."
And the Whaup thought that, if she would only wait two years he would work to such purpose as to be able to ask her to marry him.
Before the cruise was ended, Lord Earlshope, who had the lonely man's habit of playing spectator to his own emotions, informed Coquette, in an impersonal way, that he had fallen in love with her.
"You are not responsible," said he, shrugging his shoulders and speaking without bitterness. "All I ask is that you give me the benefit of your sympathy. I have been flying my kite too near the thunder-cloud. And what business had a man of my age with a kite?"
"I am very sorry," she said softly.
After this confession Coquette tried to avoid him as much as possible; but one evening while she was sitting alone on deck, watching the sunset on wild Loch Scavaig, he came to her and told her he was going away. He held out his hand, but she made no response. What was it he heard in the stillness of the night? Moved by a great fear he knelt down, and looked into her drooping face. She was sobbing bitterly. Then there broke on him a revelation more terrible than his own sorrow.