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.

"Why are you distressed? It is nothing to you--my going away? It cannot
be anything to you surely?"

"It is very much," she said, with a calmness of despair that startled
him. "I cannot bear it."

"What have I done! What have I done!" he exclaimed. "Coquette, Coquette,
tell me you do not mean this! You do not understand my position. What