of future friendship with the lady of the house.

The day wore on, and still the visitor remained, entertaining himself,
and discoursing widely, but for the most part on practices and motives
strange at Otter.

"So you've married, after all, Hector," he said, suddenly, as they sat
together in the twilight: "well, I excuse you," with a laugh and a touch
on the shoulder.

The words were simple enough, but they tingled in Leslie's ears like
insolence, and Hector Garret, so hard to rouse, bit his lips while he
answered indifferently--"And when does your time come, Nigel? Are the
shadows not declining with you?"

"Faith, they're so low, that there's not light left for the experiment;
besides, French life spoils one for matrimony here, at least so poor
Alice used to say--'no galling bonds on this side of the Channel'--the
peaceful _couvent grille_, or a light _mariage de convenance_ among the
pleasant southerns;--not that they are so pleasant as they were formerly
either."

Hector Garret got up and walked to one of the window recesses, his brow
knit, his teeth set.

Leslie rose to steal from the room.

"Nay, stay, madam," urged the bland, brazen intruder; "don't rob us so
soon of a fair, living apology for _fades souvenirs_."

But "Go, Leslie, we will not detain you," Hector Garret exclaimed,
impatiently; and Leslie hurried to her own chamber in a tumult of
surprise and indignation, and vexed suspicion. Mysteries had not ceased;
and what was this mystery to which Hector Garret deigned to lend himself
in disparaging company with a sorry fine gentleman?

Bridget Kennedy was there before her, making a pretence of fumbling in
the wardrobe, her head shaking, her lips working, her eyes blazing with
repressed rage and malice.

"Is he there, madam, still?" she demanded, impetuously. "Is he torturing
and maddening Master Hector with his tones and gestures? He!--he that
ought to crouch among the bent grass and fern sooner than pass the other
on the high road. Borrowing and begging, to lavish on his evil courses:
he who could not pay us--not in red gold, but with his heart's
blood--the woe he wrought. They had guileful, stony hearts, the
Boswells, before they ever took to foreign lightness and wickedness: and
evil to him who trafficked with them in life or death."

"Who is he, Bridget? I do not know him; I cannot understand," gasped
Leslie.

"Don't ask me, madam--you, least of all."

"Tell me, Bridget, tell me," implor