Читать книгу The Last of Their Race - Annie S. Swan - Страница 5

CHAPTER V

THE BRIDGE BUILDERS

Kitty did not look so surprised as might have been expected. She walked with alacrity to the door in spite of Isla's rather eager protest.

"It's my belief, Isla, that you shut up the poor old General to prevent people from seeing him. I should not be at all surprised to find him in the dungeon-room," she said saucily over her shoulder as she disappeared round the sharp turning of the stair.

Isla reluctantly re-entered the drawing-room, fully aware of what was coming.

"Don't, Neil," she said, lifting a deprecating hand. "It has got to be done, so there isn't any use of talking about it."

"But, Isla!" he groaned, "it can't be done. Why, it will kill the General! Does he know what is in contemplation?"

"I have tried to tell him, but he can't understand," said Isla pitifully.

"He'll understand quickly enough when it comes to the bit--when you take him away from the old house. Why, it's the house he was born in, and he can't leave it now when he is old and frail. It's worth any sacrifice to let him have his last days in peace."

"It is; but I have made all the sacrifices possible, and have reached the end of my tether. If somebody could awaken the sense of sacrifice in Malcolm it would be different."

"Malcolm will be furious! Have you written and asked him, for after all he's the heir, you know, and a step--a big, drastic, horrible step like letting a property--can't be, or at least ought not to be, taken without consulting the heir."

Isla smiled drearily as she dropped into a chair.

Her old friend's anger was quite understandable and natural; but, oh, if people only knew how futile it all was!

"Listen, Neil. I thought of telling you the other day when we went to Glasgow together, but it was too new and raw then. Of course, that was the business I had to see Cattanach about. It is Malcolm who has caused this--who has wrought the red ruin of Achree."

Drummond was silent before the poignancy of her tone. Nor could he say that he was altogether astonished, since he knew Malcolm Mackinnon, and was fully aware of part at least of his unspeakable folly and misdoing.

"I may as well tell you now," went on Isla hotly. "Soon it will be the common property of the glen. Malcolm has had to send in his papers."

"My God, Isla, you don't say so!" said Drummond, and his fresh, kindly face grew a little white under the shock.

She nodded.

"Yes--and he owes over two thousand pounds to money-lenders, and our account is over-drawn at the bank. So now you know why the Americans must come to Achree."

She leaned back, and a small, very dismal smile just hovered about the corners of her sad, proud mouth.

Neil Drummond could scarcely have looked more thunderstruck and overwhelmed had the disaster come to his own Garrion, nor could he have felt it more acutely. He took a turn across the floor, and then he came and stood in front of her, his broad shoulders squared, a sudden look of strength and determination upon his kindly face.

"Why didn't you let us know before things got to this stage, Isla? What are friends for--that's what I'd like to know? Your silence just shows what a poor place, after all, any of us have in your estimation."

"No, no, Neil. But don't you see it was such a big, desperate, hopeless thing that nobody could give any help in the matter? And the dearer the friends are, the more impossible it would be to take money from them. You must understand that. You do understand it--only it pleases you to be denser than I have ever known you in the whole course of our acquaintance."

"The whole course of our acquaintance!" he repeated, half-eagerly, half-wistfully. "It's been spread over a pretty long period of years now, hasn't it, Isla?"

"Yes, but it looks like centuries. To-day I feel a century old myself."

"What you're needing, my dear, is somebody to take care of you," he said with a great gentleness. "I must speak again, though I promised to be silent till you gave me leave to speak. Won't you let me step into the breach, Isla? Marry me, and I'll do my best to smooth things over, and the General shall certainly not leave Achree. Garrion coffers are not so very full just at present, but I think there might be enough raised to prevent that unthinkable catastrophe."

She shook her head.

"I can't, Neil, I can't! Don't say another word about it."

"I'm not asking anything," he said with the humbleness born of a really unselfish love--"only the right to take care of you and shield you and, if need be, fight for you. Malcolm is your brother, Isla, but I'd like to get into grips with him just once to punish him for all these lines that have come on your dear face through him. And if he comes back to the glen I'll tell him what I think of him, even if it should be the last word I speak in this world!"

"It is easier to have one's men folk killed in wars, Neil," she said in a low voice. "Last week Lady Eden was bewailing Archie's death, even though she had his little V.C. on the table beside her. I could have cried out to her to go down on her knees and thank God because he is safe from all hurt and evil. She does not begin to know the meaning of sorrow, as we know it here. I have only one consolation--that my father will never now be able to grasp the real meaning of what has happened. You'll have to help me to keep it from him--to talk and to act as if nothing out of the common had occurred; and you must promise to come and to bring Kitty to see us at Creagh."

"At Creagh!" cried Drummond aghast. "You don't mean to say that you are going to bury yourselves in that God-forsaken hole? Oh, my dear, Garrion may be bad, but at least it is get-at-able. Shut up in Creagh, with the General and with Malcolm when he comes home!--it will be the death of you, Isla."

"No, no, I take a lot of killing. Do be a bit more cheerful, Neil. I'm sure you must have thought the Americans quite nice people. He is charming, I think. He builds bridges in America, and Cattanach says that he is a man of genius."

"He may build what he likes, but if he comes to Achree, whatever the price he pays, he commits the unpardonable sin," he said sourly. "Don't let us talk about him. I'm waiting for an answer to my question. It isn't much I ask, Isla. I promise not to molest you or to beg for your love, though I'll do my best to win it. Why is it that you won't believe in me?"

"Oh, I do, Neil. It is because I like you so much that I won't marry you," she answered frankly, but a little wearily. "You deserve something so much better than a half-hearted wife."

"I'd rather have the half or the quarter of you than the whole of any other woman," he made answer in the reckless way of the lover. "At least, promise me that if you should change your mind, that if things should get desperate, you'll come to me? A word will be enough, Isla--even a look. I'll fly to your bidding on the wings of the wind."

"Oh, Neil, I wish that all this eloquence and this devotion could be given to a better woman----"

"She doesn't exist," put in the lover stoutly. "Now, tell me about Malcolm. What is the meaning of this horrible thing that has happened, and who told you?"

"He told me himself in last week's letter. Oh, yes--he minds, of course, but he thinks he has been unjustly treated. Somebody is always treating Malcolm unjustly, you know; and, whatever happens, it is always another person's fault."

"But it must be very serious, my dear. Has there been any other communication--anything from his Colonel, or the War Office for the General?"

"No--nothing; and when anything comes I shall intercept it," she replied without the smallest hesitation. "What is concerning me most is that, in about three weeks' time, Malcolm will be at home, loafing about idle in the glen, and I shall never know a moment's ease of mind. That's the redeeming feature of Creagh--it's at least five miles from everywhere. But, of course, he can't be permitted to loaf about. He must find some occupation. I wonder----"

She stopped there, however, and Neil was left to conjecture what it was that she wondered. He would not have been so well pleased had he known that her thoughts had flown with a curious sense of restfulness and hope to the man who had just left them. The hated man had said that the business of his life was to demolish difficulties and to build bridges where none had been before. Could he--or would he--undertake the problem of Malcolm's life?

Kitty returned while that question was still lingering in Isla's mind, and, after a little more desultory talk, the brother and sister took their departure.

"Tell Kitty on the way home, Neil," whispered Isla as she bade him good-bye, her fingers aching under his strong, almost painful, pressure which was intended to convey all the thoughts of which his heart was full.

"Give Aunt Betty my love, and tell her that I will pay her a visit before I go to Creagh," she added. "Yes, of course, tell her about Malcolm too, but don't say too much about it, and, of course, outside Garrion----"

She laid a significant finger on her lip.

Neil nodded, and, with gloom sitting on his brow, ascended to his high perch on the dogcart and tucked the rug about his sister's knees.

The next three weeks passed in a whirl of business for Isla Mackinnon.

The very next morning after the visit of the Americans to Achree she had Jimmy Forbes up from Lochearn to drive her to Creagh. The sun was shining so brightly and the air was so soft and balmy that all of a sudden she decided that the drive might do her father good.

He had only just come down from his bedroom and was standing in the doorway, enjoying the air, when the trap drove up, and Isla came down the stairs.

"Where are you for this morning, my dear?"

"I'm going to Creagh. Will you go with me, dear? I have some particular business to do at Creagh this morning, and it's so deliciously sunny and warm and I think the drive would do you good."

"Yes, I'd like to go," said the old man with the wistful pleasure of the child, at the same time taking a critical look at the stout roan cob that had come up from the hotel stable, well and fit for the rough road over Creagh moor.

It did not take Isla and Diarmid long to wrap the General up, and off they went through the pleasant spring sunshine, mounting slowly all the time until they reached the broad plateau of the moor of Creagh, which was the one valuable asset of Achree and constituted its only claim to the dignity of being a sporting estate.

The Lodge stood at the far angle of the moor, about a mile across from the road--a small, bare, ugly house which made no pretence to being anything more than a shelter for sportsmen. It was well protected by a clump of sturdy fir trees, and it had even a fertile bit of garden ground behind, with a small glass-house, and excellent stables. It was furnished throughout, and it was in the care of Margaret Maclaren, an old pensioner of Achree and widow of a former keeper.

She was a faithful servant who attended well to her duties whether her employers were there to see her or not, and she was not at all put out by the unexpected arrival of the trap from Achree.

Bathed in the glorious noon sunshine, the place looked its best, and even the interior did not seem at all amiss. All the windows were open to the sun, and Isla's sharp eyes noted the complete absence of damp, which was her chief enemy at Achree.

"Father, isn't it pretty here?" she asked the General as they stood for a moment in the porch before entering the house. "I should like to come up and live the whole summer here."

"It would not be amiss in the summer, child. Many a happy day have I spent in Creagh and many a jolly night."

She led him into the dining-room--a goodly-sized square room, not unhandsomely furnished in oak, the carpet rolled up in the middle of the floor, and faded chintz covers over the leather chairs.

The open casement windows commanded a splendid and uninterrupted view of the whole moor which, even in its bareness and in the wildness of the winter, had a certain rugged beauty of its own. A low hill rose immediately behind the house, from which a glorious prospect of the whole valley of the Earn could be seen, with Ben Voirlich rising like a buttress behind all the lesser hills in the valley below.

The air was like wine, and Isla's spirits rose as she grasped the possibilities of the simpler life there, in that remote lodge in a wilderness.

She quickly interviewed Margaret Maclaren, and in her company she made a rapid survey of the dismantled house, the result of which showed her that a very few days would suffice to put it in order for their reception.

"We have let Achree for the season, Margaret," she said in the most matter-of-fact voice she could command, "and the new tenants want to come in at Easter. You will thoroughly air and fire all the house, but more especially my father's room above the dining-room. These two rooms will be most exclusively his. We shall eat in the little room at the back, while he has this for his library and sitting-room."

"Yes, Miss Isla, and hoo mony will come up from Achree--of the servants, I mean?"

"Only Diarmid, Margaret. You and he must just manage. I will help all I can. If we find it too much, your niece, Annie Chisholm, could be got. Perhaps this will be necessary when we have Mr. Malcolm at home. Yes--he is coming soon, and he will be here with us for a few weeks at least."

Whatever secret wonder may have been in the soul of Margaret Maclaren, she suffered none of it to be expressed on her face.

Isla was much pleased with her visit and with the possibilities of the house, part of which she had forgotten. She saw that her father, too, was pleased. He enjoyed his walk about the place and constantly spoke of the beautiful view from the front of the house across the moor and down to Glenogle.

"I'll take the reins down, Jamie," said Isla to the hotel groom.

When they were fairly out on the road she turned rather anxiously to her father, talking to him in a low voice which there was no possible chance of Jamie overhearing as he was rather deaf at the best of times, and was almost entirely devoid of curiosity--a trait in his character worth mentioning.

"Father, I want to tell you something. Will you mind very much if we come up to Creagh soon for the whole summer?"

"No, I think I should like it," he answered, unexpectedly. "But you would find it very dull, wouldn't you?"

"I'm never dull anywhere. You saw the folk who came yesterday--the Americans, didn't you? I saw Mr. Rosmead talking to you at the shrubbery."

"I saw them--yes. Who were they and what brought them to Achree? I don't remember having seen him before."

"You haven't seen him before. He's a stranger--a rich American, and I have let Achree to him for six months."

Her hand trembled a little on the reins, and she half-expected either a petulant outburst or some other demonstration of feeling that would vex and alarm her soul and would harm the old man. But when, made anxious by his silence, she turned to look at him, his face only wore the perplexed expression of a child's.

"I don't know for what reason you want to let the place, Isla, or why anybody should wish to take it. But have it your own way. I dare say we could be very comfortable in Creagh unless, indeed, we have a wet summer. Then we would get very sick of it. I suppose the new folk would be willing to go out if we found it not possible to live up here."

"They would be perfectly reasonable, I'm sure, father," said Isla.

Her relief was so great that her features visibly relaxed, and her eyes began to shine. She was getting on famously. If only the latter part of the sad and sorry business should prove as easy to arrange as the first had been--why, then, perhaps she had been torturing herself needlessly. She had scarcely had a good night's rest since the arrival of the Indian mail, and the strain was beginning to tell on her.

"Well, I think I'll get you settled in Creagh comfortably with Diarmid as soon as possible. Then, after you are feeling quite at home, I think I shall go to Plymouth to meet Malcolm's boat. I haven't had a holiday for four years, father, and in the letter I had from Aunt Jean the other day she said they were all going up from Barras this week to Belgrave Square. So I'll take a few days of London dissipation before I meet Malcolm."

The old man made no demur. So great were his faith and his trust in Isla that he seldom questioned any of her doings.

During that week the bargain was concluded with the Rosmeads by Mr. Cattanach, after which a small correspondence began between Isla and Rosmead concerning certain minor repairs in the Castle that he wished to execute at his own expense.

A few days before they removed to Creagh he came down himself, ostensibly for the purpose of explaining to her that what he wished to effect was only a few small improvements with a view to making the home more comfortable for his mother.

Isla at first had resented the idea. Her Highland pride even got the length of tempting her to write and tell the man that he could either take the house as it was or leave it. But she could not afford to do that, so she relieved her feelings by writing the letter and then consigning it to the fire.

It was, however, a rather subdued and coldly aggressive Isla who met him on the occasion of his coming to pay his second call. But when she saw him, she was ashamed that she had written that letter and was glad that she had had the sense to burn it.

"I thought that I had better come instead of writing in reply to your last letter, Miss Mackinnon," he said presently. "We were getting adrift from the main issue. I want to explain that I don't propose to make any structural alterations on the house. The stove that I wrote about is an American invention for the heating of unsatisfactory country houses where, for some reason or other, the ordinary heating is difficult to arrange. It will greatly add to my mother's comfort while she is here, and it can be taken away when we leave. It will not harm the house but, on the contrary, will benefit it by drying it up. I think you mentioned to my sister that it was a little damp."

"It is very damp in parts," said Isla stoutly. "I am not seeking to deny it. I am sorry I wrote like that about the stove. You see," she added with her wandering smile which to him was wholly pathetic, "I am new to the business of house-letting, and you must be patient with me."

Her brief anger and irritation vanished under his clear, kind gaze, and the immensity of comfort and strength that seemed to be created by his very presence.

"You may trust me to do nothing which would alter the house out of your recognition," he said gently. "My mother is an old lady, and her chest is weak. It is absolutely necessary that she be kept warm and that no damp should be allowed to come near her. We are charmed with the house and with the kindness which you showed to us that day we came. My sister has never ceased to talk about it, and my mother is looking forward very much to making your acquaintance."

"Thank you, but at the moor of Creagh we shall be very much out of the way," said Isla softly.

"A quick and strong car annihilates distance," he reminded her.

But she made a quick little gesture of dissent.

"I think the moor of silence would beat it," she answered. "Well, I am taking my father up to Creagh next Monday, and when I have settled him in it I am going to London for a few days. The house will be quite empty and ready for you from next Monday, and I hope that you will not find it disappointing. At least I haven't embroidered any of the facts."

"You are going to London?" he said, as if surprised.

"Yes, I have to meet my brother's boat at Plymouth. He is returning from India."

"A soldier?" he ventured to ask, remembering the General's rank and wondering at the dull flush that rose to her face.

"Yes. But I think he may leave the Army for good. My father's health is so very frail. Nothing can be settled, however, till my brother comes home," she answered, hating herself for the prevarication that her clear conscience told her was nothing short of a lie.

But the pride in her burned high, and she would not demean herself to this man who, with all his pleasant ways and curious suggestion of power and strength, was only a rich, new-made American, who could never be expected to understand any of the feelings that lay deep in the heart of a Mackinnon of Achree.

As for Rosmead, he only smiled inwardly, attracted by her moods, which were as changeful as the face of Loch Earn. He was a builder of bridges, and the conquering of obstacles was, as he had told her, his business.

He could bide his time.

CHAPTER VI

THE HOPE OF ACHREE

When the "Jumna," an old troopship which had been fitted out for second-rate traffic from India, slowly approached her mooring in Plymouth Dock, Malcolm Mackinnon, smoking at the rail, ran his eyes along the waiting queue of expectant people at the landing-stage without the remotest expectation of seeing anybody belonging to him there. He knew the limitations of life in Glenogle, and how very little journeying to and fro on the face of the earth fell to the inmates of Achree.

He did not resemble the Mackinnons in appearance. He was short and thick-set, with his head set squarely on his shoulders, and he had a ruddy, sun-burned face, a pair of light blue eyes, a shifty mouth, and hair with more than a touch of red in it. He was very like his mother who had wrought confusion in Achree.

Isla, of course, did not know the full tragedy of her father's sad married life. Only she did know that she had been often impressed with the feeling and conviction that Malcolm was alien to Achree.

He might have been a changeling, so much did he differ in everything from any Mackinnon among them. Yet he had looks of a kind and a certain way with him which won people and made them, even against their better judgment, forgive him. This is a dangerous possession for a man who is not endowed with a very high sense of responsibility. It may at once be said that on more than one occasion Malcolm Mackinnon had traded on this happy-go-lucky, winning way of his.

When he saw Isla waving to him he gave a great start of surprise, which was almost chagrin. He had made several appointments in London, where he had intended to spend a few pleasant days before his liberty should be curtailed at Achree. His sister's presence would make these days difficult, if not impossible. Then the wild thought flashed through him that perhaps it meant that something had happened to his father. A month is a long time in a frail old man's life, and no one knew what a day might bring forth.

But Isla was not in mourning, and her face was as serene as usual. It would be unjust to say that he wished for his father's death, but certainly had he arrived in Scotland to find himself Laird of Achree, instead of merely heir to it, it would have made a material difference to his immediate comfort as well as to his prospects. For his affairs were in a tangle from which he did not know how he was going to extricate himself.

But now he had to meet the first stage in the coming of the inevitable Nemesis in the shape of Isla, whose frank tongue he knew of yore. He was fond of her in a way, and admired her greatly. He even wondered what all the men were thinking of that she remained unmarried at twenty-five. When he got nearer to her he saw that she had aged but little, while he himself had grown fat and gross, as will a man of his build who is fond of drink and of good living.

"Isla, how awfully good of you to do this! I never expected to see you or any of our ilk here," he exclaimed in greeting. "How on earth did you manage it, and how is the old man?"

"Father is very well. I thought I had better come to meet you, because there are heaps of things to explain; and besides, I felt that I wanted just a few days' change. I'm at Belgrave Square."

His face immediately fell. He did not like his Barras cousins, nor did they like him. Nay, they highly disapproved of him and all his works, and it was, he felt, positively cruel of Isla to have laid him open to the cross-questioning of the whole clan at the very moment of his arrival in England.

"In the circumstances you might have spared me that lot, Isla," he said with the gloom on his face that she remembered so well. "I won't go to Belgrave Square--so there!" he added positively. "There is a small cheap hotel off the Strand will do me--that is, if I don't go up north to-night."

"I haven't told them anything," said Isla quietly. "They only know that you are coming home, and, fortunately for me, they don't seem a bit curious. Aunt Jean was the only one who remarked about your getting leave so soon again. You can please yourself about going to the little hotel to sleep, but I promised that you should dine at Belgrave Square to-night."

"Oh, well, if they don't know anything and won't ask awkward questions," he said with a breath of relief, "I don't mind going."

"I had some difficulty in preventing Marjorie and Sheila from coming down. If they hadn't had a fitting for a Court frock they would have insisted on it. Sheila is going to be presented at the next drawing-room--on 7 May."

"Oh!" said Malcolm, but his interest was of languid order. "Well, I'd better see about my stuff. I haven't much. I sold out all I could before I left. There are always hard-up beggars in the regiment willing to buy, and I knew I shouldn't want much in the glen."

Again he spoke with airy inconsequence, as if nothing was of any great importance. Isla was quite conscious of a vivid and growing resentment. As she watched his strong, well-knit figure busy among the few traps which he was instructing one of the porters to collect, she wondered how he dared to be so regardless as he was. A grown man with a man's strength and ability of a kind--yet nothing but a burden and a care to other folks, to frail folks like an old man and a young woman. The inequality and injustice of it imparted a most unusual hardness to her face. She was hardly disappointed, however, because Malcolm had always held his sins of omission and commission lightly and feared only their consequences.

But in his heart of hearts he did feel his latest disgrace. A certain dogged dourness, however, would not permit him to show it.

After his meagre baggage had been collected there was still no sign of the boat-train leaving, so they paced the platform from end to end, talking together in low, eager tones, indicative of the deep interest of the subject under discussion.

"How long do you intend to stop in London?" he asked.

"I only came down to meet you. I thought we might go home on Friday."

"Oh well, if you like," he said, but she saw his face fall.

"I don't like to leave father any longer. He was very good about my coming, and Kitty Drummond was to go over to Creagh every day while I am away."

"To Creagh, you say! Who's there now, then?"

"We are. I have let Achree to some rich Americans, and they went into residence yesterday, I believe, or at least partly. They are doing a lot to the house, but their tenancy dates from Easter."

Malcolm stood still on the wooden pavement and stared at her in genuine dismay.

"You've let Achree, you say! In Heaven's name what for, and who gave you leave?"

"Nobody gave me leave. I took it; and you are the last person who ought to ask why," she made answer rather passionately.

"But--but--" he stuttered, "whatever did the governor say?"

"He said very little one way or other. I'm not even sure if he grasped the fact. But at least he was quite pleased to go to Creagh."

"To Creagh--to that little one-horse place! Do you mean to say that you propose to live there, then?"

"We are living there," she answered steadily.

"And you did this on your own, Isla? Well, I think you had a jolly good cheek. The decent thing would have been to wait till I came home at least. You won't deny, surely, that I have a say in it."

"I don't know about the say. What I did know was that if you came home the bargain would probably never have been concluded."

"But what was it for, anyway?"

She turned her small proud head to him, and her clear eyes flashed.

"Malcolm, I do really wonder what you are made of."

"Flesh and blood like other folks, and I can't get away from this. How much are they paying?"

"Five hundred a year with the shooting, and we propose to live on three and to lay bye the other two to help to pay off those terrible obligations you spoke of in your letter, which has kept me awake more or less since ever it came."

He laughed airily.

"Now that's just like a woman--to imagine that the practice of small and most beastly uncomfortable economies could do any good! Have you reckoned out that it will take ten years at the rate you speak of to get me clear? Most of us will be dead by that time."

"The train is going, thank God," said Isla in a high, clear, outraged voice. "Let us get in. I don't want to talk any more to you, Malcolm--either now or at any other time. You--you are outside the pale."

"Now take it easy, old girl. I made a clean breast of it all just to show you that I was really penitent; and of course I wasn't to blame for getting chucked. Any fool in the Thirty-fifth will tell you that. But this little attempt to pull the financial wires does strike a chap as rather comical. What did old Cattanach say? I suppose he's still at the helm--worse luck for me."

"Yes, he is. I gave him your letter, Malcolm."

"The deuce you did! Then you shouldn't have done it. He's a fossil--knows nothing about life. But there--don't let us quarrel about such things. I am jolly glad to see you, old girl. And now I'll relieve you of all these beastly sordid cares. But Creagh, good Lord!--and not a bit of horse-flesh on the premises, I could bet my bottom dollar! I think I must try and rake up a motor-bike before I leave town; otherwise it will be like being buried alive."

The guard was calling London passengers to take their seats, and they made haste into the nearest compartment, which quickly filled up so that no further talk of a private nature was possible. Isla was glad of it. She had had enough.

As she sat opposite to her brother who, immediately the train started, composed himself in his corner for a sleep, she had ample time to study his face. That study filled her with a great and growing sadness. He was just over thirty, and in all these years there were few well-spent days. As a boy he had been a care and trouble to his people and to his schoolmasters, and, in these respects, the boy had been father to the man.

She thought again with a little, faint, passing sight of envy of the gallant boy whom the Edens had given to their country, who had died a hero's death upon the field. She told herself that had such a fate been Malcolm's she could have thanked God for it. Then she drew herself up with a little shudder, remembering sharply certain Bible words which had no uncertain sound--"Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer."

She did not hate him--only her heart was very tired and full of fear for the future.

That night, at the hospitable table of his uncle in Belgrave Square, Malcolm shone with the best of them. He was on his mettle, and he exerted himself to please, showing a nice deference to his stately aunt as well as to his jolly uncle, and he made himself perfectly adorable to his cousins.

Isla felt herself quite put in the background, but she did not mind. It was even a relief not to think, but just to sit still and let Malcolm's false light shine. Soon enough they would have to know what had happened, and then she knew that her Aunt Jean would never forgive him.

She came into Isla's room that night when the girl was brushing her hair, and, touched by the expression on her face, put a kindly question.

"What is it, dear child? Don't you feel very well? You haven't looked like yourself all day."

"I'm all right, Aunt Jean," Isla answered, but she did not meet her aunt's eyes.

"Malcolm is simply splendid! How improved he is! What charming manners! After all, the Army is the place for boys like Malcolm. Do you remember what an anxiety he used to be to your father in the old days? How proud of him he must be now!"

Isla did not answer--she simply could not. She felt as if she must scream out loud.

"Your uncle is delighted. They've been having a long talk in the smoking-room. Must you really hurry away on Friday, dear? We should simply love to have you and Malcolm for another week. I could get up a little dance for Malcolm. That sort of impromptu affair is often most enjoyable and it really seems a shame to go and bury him in Achree, or rather in Creagh, for so long."

"I can't stop, Aunt Jean. You know how father is. He is really quite frail, and I should not have an easy mind after Friday, but Malcolm can stop if he likes."

"I must ask him. How long has he, do you know?"

"You can ask him that, too, Aunt Jean," answered Ida very low.

"He isn't at all pleased about the letting of Achree. From his point of view, it does seem a little hard. Why did you do it, Isla, when you knew he was coming home this year? Surely it could have waited at least till the autumn."

"It couldn't wait. We had no money to go on with, Aunt Jean," answered Isla.

"Oh but, my dear, your uncle or I would have come to the rescue. What are folk for if they can't be made use of in that direction?" asked Lady Mackinnon almost playfully.

"It didn't matter about the letting, auntie. Everybody does it, and as for Malcolm, he is the very last person who ought to complain."

The voice was so hard that it slightly wounded the woman who heard it. She stepped forward and lifted the girl's chin in her hand and looked down into her face.

"Don't get hard, Isla. It is so unbecoming to a woman. I know that you have had a lot to think of, but now that Malcolm has come home roll it off on to his broad shoulders. It is what broad shoulders are given to our menfolk for. And, above all, don't get thinking that nobody can do things except yourself. Don't you think you're just a wee bit inclined that way, Isla?"

"Yes, I am all that way," answered Isla stolidly. "I fully admit it. But don't imagine I like it, Aunt Jean. The thing that I most want in this world is peace, and I can't get it. Good night, auntie. I'm sorry that I'm so disappointing."

Lady Mackinnon kissed her fondly, yet with a little regret.

"Isla's getting hard, Tom," she said to her husband when he came up a little later. "It's very bad for a girl to lose her mother, though in Isla's case, of course, it would have been worse if her mother had been spared. Don't you notice how hard and dull she has got to be of late? What a pity she couldn't marry! She used to be quite pretty."

"Used to be, Jean! What are you talking about?" asked Sir Tom rather irritably. "She's pretty yet, with the sort of beauty that a man doesn't tire of, and she's clever too. Depend on it, if Isla's hard she has had something to make her so. Malcolm's charming, of course, and much improved, but just once or twice to-night I felt that he didn't ring true."

"Nonsense, Tom. We have been out of the world too long and haven't marched with the times. I should like them to stop for a week or two, but Isla won't hear of it. She says she must go on Friday."

"Let Isla alone. She knows her own business best. As for Malcolm, please yourself, but I haven't got at the bottom of the meaning of this leave of his yet. It's unusual. I shouldn't wonder to hear that there is something behind it."

Lady Mackinnon did not take her husband's words at all seriously. She had no son, and her heart warmed to Malcolm, and she fell asleep, thinking how blessed she would have been among women had he been hers. Another of the mistakes this into which poor humanity, seeing through a glass darkly, is so liable to fall!

Next morning Isla left the house about eleven o'clock to go to an obscure street on the other side of Bayswater for the purpose of calling on an old servant at Achree, who had married a butler, and who now conducted a small boarding-house off the Edgeware Road.

It was a lovely spring morning, and she said she would prefer to walk across the Park. She greatly enjoyed that walk. The wide spaces of the Park, the enchanting glimpses through the trees which, though still bare, were beautiful with the sun upon their delicate tracery of branch and bough, seemed to fill her soul.

She did not greatly care for London life, and she often wondered a little at her cousins' enthusiasm over balls and routs, and all the treadmill of fashionable society. They were so excited over their Court frocks that their dreams were haunted by chiffons and festoons of lace and Court trains hung from slender shoulders.

Isla indeed was far too grave for her years. She had been cheated of her youth. Even she herself did not know what possibilities for frivolity and fun her nature held, nor how gay she could have been had not care, like a gaunt spectre, walked so long by her side.

Her discomfort about Malcolm was keen this morning. Even the gracious influence of the sun could not altogether banish it. But it helped, and her face looked very sweet under the brim of her simple hat, and more than one pair of eyes filled with admiration as she passed.

She left the park at the Marble Arch, crossed the road, and made her way along the Edgeware Road to Cromar Street, where Mrs. Fraser lived. It was not her first visit, and Agnes having been apprised of her coming, was on the doorstep to welcome her.

"There ye are, Miss Isla--a sight for sair een! I have been so put about wi' joy all this morning that I have not been able to do my work. How are you, and how is all at dear Achree?"

"So, so, Agnes," answered Isla with a smile as she grasped the faithful servant's hand and passed across her hospitable threshold. "You look wonderfully well. I hope that Fraser is too, and the children, and that everything is going right with you?"

Isla possessed to the full the faculty of binding those who served her to her with hooks of steel, she was so sweetly kind and interested in everything concerning them. Yet she held their respect, and no servant, even the least satisfactory, had ever been known to presume in the smallest degree upon any kindness shown.

She sat down in Agnes Fraser's ugly, heavy dining-room, which reeked of stale tobacco smoke, but which represented the greater part of her living, being let, with bedroom accommodation, to two permanencies who paid her well. And there Isla listened to the whole recital of the good woman's affairs. It occurred to Agnes only after Isla had gone, at the end of an hour's time, that she had really heard very little about Achree.

As Isla had risen to depart, she had said with a smile: "If you are coming to the glen this summer, Agnes, you will have a longer walk to get to us. We have gone to live at Creagh for the season, and Achree is let to some Americans."

Agnes looked the dismay she felt, but abstained from comment and only remarked that she hoped they had made Creagh comfortable, and that they would not find it too dull.

But after the door was shut upon her visitor she wept tears of sorrow because the glory was departed from Achree.

Her last duty done, Isla's thoughts as she left the house began to revert with persistent longing to the glen. She had neither part nor lot in cities, and she could not understand the craze that people had for this great, overgrown London, where folk were always in a hurry and falling over one another in their haste.

Mrs. Fraser's house was well up the street, and Isla, walking quite fast and wrapped up in her own thoughts, had no eyes for any of those who passed her. But presently she came to the corner house of a little street near the Marble Arch end of the road. The door opened as she passed, and two persons came out, so close upon her that she could not but notice them.

Then her heart gave a sickly bound, and she sped on without once looking back.

It was Malcolm who came out of that house, and there was with him a woman, an impossible woman--that was the impression Isla carried away--a large, tall person, with an abundance of yellow hair and an enormous black hat perched upon it. Handsome in a way she might be, and her smile as she had made some jesting remark to her companion had been dazzling.

But it did not dazzle Isla. She grew cold all over, and, without waiting on her better judgment, which might have urged some quite simple explanation, she jumped to the conclusion that Malcolm had some entanglement which was at the bottom of his downfall.