Miss Wardour’s obvious determination not to allow Captain M’Intyre an opportunity for private conversation with her drove Hector to speak to his sister.

“Pray who is this Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good graces?”

“If you mean how Mr. Lovel comes to visit at Monkbarns you must ask my uncle; and you must know that Mr. Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important kind.”

“What! that romantic story is true, then?  And does the valorous knight aspire to the hand of the young lady whom he redeemed from peril?  I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as we walked together.”

“Dear Hector,” said his sister, “do not continue to nourish any affection for Miss Wardour.  Your perseverance is hopeless.  Above all, do not let this violent temper of yours lead you to lose the favour of our uncle, who has hitherto been all that is kind and paternal to us.”

Captain M’Intyre promised to behave civilly, and returned to the company.

On Lovel mentioning, in the course of conversation, that he was an officer in a certain regiment, M’Intyre could not refrain from declaring that he knew the officers of that regiment, and had never heard of the name of Lovel.

Lovel blushed deeply, and taking a letter out of an envelope, handed it to M’Intyre.  The latter acknowledged the handwriting of General Sir ——­, but remarked that the address was missing.

“The address, Captain M’Intyre,” answered Lovel, “shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it.”

“I certainly shall not fail to do so,” rejoined Hector.

The party broke up, Lovel returned to Fairport, and early next morning was waited upon by a military friend of Captain M’Intyre.  Upon Lovel declining to give his name the captain insisted on his fighting, and that very evening the duel was arranged to take place in a valley close by the ruins of St. Ruth.

Captain M’Intyre’s ball grazed the side of his opponent, but did not draw blood.  That of Lovel was more true, and M’Intyre reeled and fell.

The grasp of old Ochiltree, who had appeared on the scene, roused Lovel to movement, and leaving M’Intyre to the care of a surgeon, he followed the bedesman into the recesses of the wood, in order to get away by boat the following morning.

Amid the secret passages of the ruins, well known to Ochiltree, Lovel was to pass the night; but all rest was impossible by the discovery of two human figures, one of whom Lovel made out to be a German named Donsterswivel, a swindling impostor who promised discoveries of gold to Sir Arthur Wardour, gold buried in the ruins, and only to be unearthed by magic and considerable expenditure of ready money.

“That other ane,” whispered Edie, “maun be, according to a’ likelihood, Sir Arthur Wardour.  I ken naebody but himself wad come here at this time wi’ that German blackguard.”