Chapter XII: Olive's Visitor,

Another mystery has now to be accounted for--the state in which Allan found Olive when her cry reached him as he idled with his cigar in the grounds at Maviswood in the evening, when the rest of the family circle were in town.

Olive was seated alone in one of the drawing-rooms when a gentleman was announced--a gentleman who no doubt thought Allan was absent in Edinburgh also.

'Mr. Holcroft.'

'Mr. Holcroft!' A book she was reading fell from the hand of Olive, and she started to her feet as that personage, hat in hand, stood smilingly before her. For a moment she could scarcely believe her eyes as they met the pale, watery, and shifty ones of her unexpected visitor.

Terror and horror filled her heart on finding herself face to face with this man--an assassin in intent! It was too horrible--too _outré_ and grotesque to think of.

But what was his intention now? She was not left long in ignorance. Why did she not rush to the bell--summon the household, and have the daring intruder expelled or arrested? But no--she felt a very coward just then, with a great dread of Allan discovering him, and a heavy, sickening foreboding of coming evil.

There came dreamily to her memory, too, some threatening words of his when he had said that he would let no man come between them, and that, though he might fail to compel her to love him, he might compel her to marry him: but neither love nor marriage were in the mind of her horrible visitor just then.

Mr. Hawke Holcroft seemed rather 'down on his luck,' and looked somewhat shabby and seedy. The last fragment of his patrimony had been swallowed up; his betting-book had proved a mistake, as he had for some time past backed the wrong horses; cards had failed him and play of all kinds; in short, he was desperate, and hence his appearance at Maviswood.

To attempt the role of a lover again, after all that had passed, and after all that he was aware must be known to Miss Raymond, was, he knew, impossible; but he had a trump card to play in the way of extortion--plain, blunt, rascally extortion; so, conceiving that the girl was utterly alone, he could not for the life of him resist bantering her a little, all the more as the utter loathing and dread her face expressed, enraged him.

'Mr. Holcroft!' she exclaimed, in a breathless voice, as she recoiled and became white as a lily.

'Yes, Hawke Holcroft, the man your fatal beauty has made him,' said he, with melodramatic gloom and folded arms; 'when I met you first I met my fate--a love that was my doom. But for you, would I ever have been mad enough to attempt the life of Allan Graham?'

'How dare you come here--how dare you speak to me thus!' said Olive, glancing at the bell handle; but he planted himself between it and her.

'The love of you came to me when first you looked into my face,' he resumed, in his melodramatic style; 'I remember it was but a smile--a smile; yet a mist came before my eyes--a something stirred my heart. Ah, Olive Raymond, it was your beautiful eyes that suddenly kindled new life within me--that will only end with the old.'

Olive was more irritated than alarmed now.

'How dare you come here?' she asked.

'I can't help it--needs must when old Boots drives,' said he; 'I came to show you a work of art. Look here.'

From his pocket-book he drew out and held before her at arm's length the cabinet photo of herself in a ball-dress; the photo, or one like it, that she had the folly to give him at Dundargue; but to her horror and dismay she saw that it had been reproduced, reversed, and manipulated in some way by some low photographer, and combined with one of Holcroft himself, posed as if in the act of embracing her, forming a strange group of two, whose likenesses there would be no mistaking, more especially that of her, as it was a miraculous work of art in its truth and individuality.

It was Olive to the life, with her brightest and sweetest expression now bent on his face!

'I am glad you recognise us,' said he, mockingly, as he replaced the photo in its receptacle, and the latter in his breast pocket; 'and now to business. What would your drawing-room hero think of this, if he saw it? Ha, ha! He did not approve of Byron at Dundargue, I remember--would rather we stuck to Dr. Watts' hymns, I suppose--'How doth the little busy bee," and so forth; well, like that industrious insect, I mean to improve "the shining hour." How would he--how will you and your family, with all their cursed Scotch pride--like to see this photo in every shop window exposed for sale to the British public, among ballet-girls in snowstorms, countesses swinging in hammocks, bishops, and generals--murderers, too, perhaps--eh? In a week or two I may have a million copies of this precious photo for sale in London and elsewhere. Do you realise the meaning of this, my scornful beauty? and the result it must have on you, your name, your character, your family, and your future--Miss Olive Raymond posed in the arms of Hawke Holcroft?'

'Oh, heavens!' said Olive, in a low voice like a whisper; 'are you a man or a devil?'

'A little of both, perhaps--I am what circumstances have made me.'

'Daring wretch--oh, what wrong have I ever done you that you should cross my path and agonise me thus?'

Holcroft laughed; he knew that she had a more than handsome allowance at her guardian's behest and her own bank account. He was without remorse or pity, for cowardice and selfishness were alike the ruling features of his character, and he thought to control the tongue and action of Olive through her own pride and her love of Allan with an eye to future monetary extortions.

Pressing her left hand upon her heart, as if she felt--as no doubt she did--a spasm of pain there, and, with her eyes almost closed, she said,

'In the name of mercy, give me back that photo!'

'After I have had it so carefully improved as a work of art? No; no, Miss Raymond,' said he, in his detestable sneering tone; 'but I shall be content to forego my interest in the copyright for a certain reasonable consideration.'

'A consideration. I do not understand you, sir,' said Olive, faintly, and clutching a table for support.

'Plainly, then, I mean a cheque for three hundred--no, let me say four hundred--pounds, and you had better be quick about it, as I have no time to spare, and, truth to tell, have no desire to renew my acquaintance with any of the Aberfeldie folks again.'

'Four hundred pounds?'

'That is the sum, Miss Raymond.'

Like a blind person, she feebly and irresolutely seemed to grope with her key about the lock of her davenport, and Holcroft said,

'Permit me to assist you.'

He unlocked it, and threw open the lid. Mechanically she seated herself, and began to write, while conscious that this bantering villain was still addressing her.

'And so old Puddicombe has come to the front again,' said he. 'An odd marriage it will be--his with Miss Graham--Brummagem allying itself with the Middle Ages--the counting-house getting a line in Burke's Peerage.'

'There,' said she, handing him the cheque, which he received with a low mocking bow, 'now give me the photo.'

'Thanks, with pleasure. Perhaps you may wish to frame it. Now, listen to me,' he said, through his set teeth, 'if you divulge a word of this interview, or make known the power I have over you by means of this photograph, "then and in that case," as I believe your father's will is phrased, I shall at once introduce it to the British public. I give you this copy for your four hundred pounds, but retain the negative!'

Then it was that, as he withdrew, a cry escaped from her overcharged breast--the cry overheard by Allan, and she had only power left her to conceal the odious photo in the breast of her dress, when she fell fainting on the floor, where she was found.

To destroy it was one of her first acts, when consciousness returned, and she was alone; but what availed the destruction of this one, when her tormentor possessed the power of producing others without limit?

A great horror possessed her now--a dread and gloom came over her, with a painful nervous terror--a kind of hunted emotion--a fear of what might next ensue!

Yet she took no one into her confidence, not even Allan--on her part a fatal error.

After all her past sweet intercourse with him, their delayed marriage--delayed by the illness incident to Holcroft's outrage--and his too probable speedy departure on foreign service, was she now to harrow him up by a reference to her folly, her petulance, and her silly degrading flirtation with this man, who now proved such a pitiful, such an unfathomable villain!

What if Allan should see suddenly that fatal photo in a shop window? This possibility plainly stared her in the face; yet she was silent, and believed that ere this issue came to pass, she was doomed to be tortured and victimised by Holcroft again; and the thought, the fear of this, gave her a kind of fever of the spirit, which made her quite ill, and bewildered her friends.

Money had evidently been given by her to Holcroft--no small sum too; and for what purpose? Remembering his threat if she exposed his rascality, her tongue was now tied by a most unwise terror. Ill and harrassed, she remained much in her room and avoided society.

Allan, as he said resentfully, failed 'to see the situation,' and in a gust of pique and anger, feeling himself somewhat degraded by Olive's bearing, resigned his extended leave and joined his regiment, as Olive said, resolved to 'sulk in Edinburgh Castle, rather than have an explanation,' rather unreasonably forgetting that she had steadily refused to give one.

She felt painfully that the mystery of the money given to Holcroft was calculated to compromise her with her kindred; but what was that when compared with the awful thundercloud which hung over her, if he made the public use he threatened of the photo!

Her soul died within her. Meanwhile Allan struggled hard to make himself believe that he might yet be happy with Olive; that he had perhaps no solid reason for being otherwise; but it would not do.

'Hang it, what does all this new mystery mean?' he would say to himself. 'We seem fated to misunderstand each other somehow. After all, she seems to love her pride more than me, still!'

And Olive knew that it was mingled pride and fear that had opened a kind of chasm between her and Allan again; yet a little sense, a little courage and candour, might have closed it speedily enough, and smoothed away the anger the complication raised at times within her; while to Allan the situation was certainly an intolerable one, and Olive's silence or reticence made it all the more so.