The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Stranoe Revenge. 331
" David, answer me one question—are you and Flora as
friendly as you used to be ?"
" Why, father, what a strange question ?"
" I ask it, my son, because your manner towards
each other has struck me lately as being more strained
than usual, and neither o5 you look in your customary
health. Pardon me for introducing the subject. She is
engaged to Richard, as you know, according to her late
father's request and with my cordial consent. I hope, my
son, no vital mistake has been committed in that m.atter."
" None— it is a most proper engagement."
But the laird might probably have seen cause to suspect
the honesty of this statement, had a groom not entered at
the moment and summoned his master with all haste to a
consultation over the illness of his favourite horse. When
he was gone, David approached the window and watched
in a sort of melanchol}- reverie the movements of Flora
among the flower beds.
" I must be exceedingly careful, I see," he muttered.
" Who would have guessed the pater had suspicions of that
kind ?"
CHAPTER II.
THE FAMILY SITUATION.
" What a fool I have been ; what
an unmitigated ass
I have made of myself!"
The words were addressed by David Stuart to a book
on clinical surgery which lay open before him. He had
returned to the library, determined more than ever to shut
his mind entirely upon the cares and troubles that had
arisen within his little world, and bury himself in those
abstruse studies and problems of physical life and
philosophy, without mastering which it would be impos-
sible to attain eminence in the professional career which