"By my conscience! I forgot," said Lord Rokesle; "don't leave Stornoway
without seeing me again, I shall want you by and by."


II

Lord Rokesle sat down upon the long, high-backed bench, beside the fire,
and facing Lady Allonby's arm-chair.

Neither he nor Lady Allonby spoke for a while.

In a sombre way Lord Rokesle was a handsome man, and to-night, in brown
and gold, very stately. His bearing savored faintly of the hidalgo; indeed,
his mother was a foreign woman, cast ashore on Usk, from a wrecked Spanish
vessel, and incontinently married by the despot of the island. For her,
Death had delayed his advent unmercifully; but her reason survived the
marriage by two years only, and there were those familiar with the late
Lord Rokesle's [Footnote: Born 1685, and accidentally killed by Sir
Piers Sabiston in 1738; an accurate account of this notorious duellist,
profligate, charlatan, and playwright is given in Ireson's _Letters_.]
peculiarities who considered that in this, at least, the crazed lady was
fortunate. Among these gossips it was also esteemed a matter deserving
comment that in the shipwrecks not infrequent about Usk the women sometimes
survived, but the men never.

Now Lord Rokesle regarded Lady Allonby, the while that she displayed
conspicuous interest in the play of the flames. But by and by, "O
vulgarity!" said Lady Allonby. "Pray endeavor to look a little more
cheerful. Positively, you are glaring at me like one of those disagreeable
beggars one so often sees staring at bakery windows."