Front matter (continued 3)

Catching the reins over his arm, he took off his hat and kept it under his arm until she had given him her hand.

"It's a case of Mahomet coming to the mountain, Miss Mackinnon. I am here to-day on my mother's behalf and with a message from her."

"Yes?" said Isla, and her smile was bright and very sweet.

She had felt left out in the cold, and that feeling of neglect accounted for the little glow at her heart which had been kindled by the sincere cordiality of Rosmead's greeting.

"Do you know that she feels quite aggrieved," said he, "to think that she has been a month in Achree and that you have never called once to inquire or to make her acquaintance."

"I am very sorry. I did not think--" replied Isla a little confusedly. "And since, as I understand, my brother has paid many calls at Achree I did not think it necessary that I should call. Besides, I am very much tied here on account of my father's health----"

"I understand that," he said gently.

"And it is a long way to Achree," she continued, "and we have no horse or trap of any kind. But I will come one day very soon and make my apologies. I hope that you are pretty comfortable in the house, and that your mother likes it."

"She loves it. She has settled down, and from present signs I don't see that we shall ever get her out of it again," he answered with a laugh, watching at the game time the mobile face beside him.

He thought it the sweetest face that he had ever seen and--almost he could have said--the dearest. Yet Hylton Rosmead had seen many fair women, among whom he might without doubt have made his choice.

"I am so glad," said Isla a little wistfully. "And your sisters--do they, too, like it?"

"They do. Glenogle and Lochearn in such a spring as this leave little, I think, to be desired in the way of winsomeness. I myself feel as if I belonged here, which, I dare say, you consider great presumption on my part."

"Indeed no," said Isla, with a swift, kind glance. "I feel very glad to know that that is how you regard Achree."

"I came with a message from my mother and also, I must confess, on my own account to tell you that I have to leave Scotland for a few months."

"Oh!" said Isla, and her face unaccountably fell.

But Rosmead was not yet sufficiently acquainted with the play of its expression to understand that his news had disappointed her. Neither was he vain enough to imagine that her expression had altered because of his announcement of his impending departure.

"Where are you going?" she asked a moment later.

"Back to America. The object for which I came to this country is accomplished, and I really have no excuse for remaining longer here."

"Oh!" said Isla again, a little dully. "Somehow I imagined that you were going to settle in Scotland, though of course that was a very absurd supposition on my part."

"Not so very absurd. It is what I should like to do--what I hope to do one day. But, in the meantime, I must not forget that I am a partner in an American business and that I am expected to go back with my report."

"What report?"

"You have forgotten, of course, that I told you I was a bridge-builder. Why should you remember it?" he asked lightly. "I came over to meet the engineers and the contractors who have to do with your splendid bridges here, and in the fall I shall have to go down south, where my firm has undertaken to build one of the biggest cantilever bridges in the world."

"Oh!" said Isla a third time. "And you will not come back?"

"I hope that I shall return later in the year--probably to spend Christmas with my mother and sisters."

"They will remain here, then? You wish to extend the term of your tenancy of Achree? Do you remember it was to be for six months?"

"With the option of remaining for a year. That was made very clear, I think, at the beginning, and, as I said, my mother will not be easily ousted from Achree. She is of Scottish parentage, you know. Her mother was a Farquharson, so she imagines that she has a special claim on Scotland. Happily your brother does not mind the extension."

A sort of chill fell on Isla at mention of Malcolm's name, though why she could not have told. She had no fear that he had not made himself pleasant or agreeable at Achree; but, somehow, disaster seemed to associate itself with his name. She feared to pursue the subject. But Rosmead, quite unaware of her feeling in the matter, none of the gossip of the Glen having reached his ears, went on quietly.

"We've had several long talks about it, and practically it is arranged that we take the place on a two years' lease."

"You have arranged that with Malcolm!" she said a little faintly.

"Yes," said Rosmead. "He has been most kind about it. He tells me he has resigned his commission on account of his father's health but that he intends and hopes to get some estate management. I appreciate his kindness to us all the more on that account."

Isla, who heard all this for the first time, felt a natural thrill of indignation because she had been kept in the dark.

"I don't see that there is so very much kindness," she said quickly. "You pay very handsomely for the house."

"It is worth it," he said heartily. "The old Rosmead place in Virginia my mother has lent to her youngest sister, lately made a widow. She is looking after all the servants, and we have not the smallest anxiety about it, so you see, things have arranged themselves very nicely for us."

"Your home is in Virginia, then?" said Isla in tones of deep interest, which flattered Rosmead not a little.

"Yes. My grandfather was a big planter there, and had many slaves. Of course the war changed all that, but the place remains the same. I should like you to see Virginia, Miss Mackinnon, and my old home. It is a beautiful place."

"It seems odd that you should be so willing to leave it!"

"It had sad associations for my mother and also for my sister Vivien, who was married in the neighbourhood and was--and was--not very happy. But there--I have all this time been talking about myself, and not at all about you. Your father, I hear, is very well. I dare say, your brother's return has helped him greatly."

"Yes, I think it has," said Isla, trying to be cordial as well as loyal. "And Creagh suits him. It is very high and clear up there, and he is able to potter about just as he likes. You will come in and see him? Even his mind is much stronger. Certainly he now grasps the fact of your residence at Achree, and, I am sure, he would like to make your acquaintance properly."

"I should like to come in and see him, if I may," said Rosmead. "But before we go in will you promise to go sometimes to see my mother when I am gone? I don't know why I should ask this, but I do."

"I shall be sure to go, Mr. Rosmead. But when do you leave Scotland?"

"Next Thursday. My boat sails from Liverpool on Saturday afternoon, and I have some business in London on the Friday."

"I shall come before then, of course, and I am very sorry I have been so rude and unneighbourly," said Isla, and she meant what she said. "Do you mind walking round with me to the stable and putting your horse in? The accommodation is quite good, but there is no groom," she added with a small, pitiful smile which touched him inexpressibly.

Her whole personality appealed to him. The grave, unimpressionable Hylton P. Rosmead, accounted by his colleagues one of the hardest-headed men of his time, was so moved by this woman, whom he had seen so few times, that he could have taken her in his arms there and then, and asked nothing better than to keep her for the rest of his life and hers.

She was so sweetly natural and womanly, so altogether devoid of pretension that she appealed to every fibre in his being. He hated the artificiality of the women of his set--the smart women whom he had met in New York society and who were ready to make much of the "Bridge-builder," as they called him--and to pour the incense of their flattery upon him. But the atmosphere had always impressed him as being insincere, and he had often told his mother that if he ever married it would be in some very unexpected place. He knew now that he had found the place and the woman.

All unconscious of what was passing in his mind, Isla led the way to the stables, stood by while he tied up his horse, and then walked back with him, pointing out the beauty of the situation and the incomparable view from the little plateau on which the house was built.

"Now I wonder whether David Bain has ever come. I suppose you saw nothing of him on the road, Mr. Rosmead?"

"Nothing. He was ahead of me, I am sure, because he is the most punctual person I have ever heard tell of. I have heard that in Glenogle they set their clocks by David."

Isla passed into the house with a smile on her lips and, crossing the narrow hall, opened the door of the dining-room which her father used as a library and sitting-room.

And there she stood just a moment as if frozen upon the threshold. Her father was not in his accustomed chair, but lay on the hearthrug, where he had evidently fallen with the page of an open letter grasped tightly in his hand.

CHAPTER X

THE HOUSE OF WOE

Isla sprang forward and knelt down in a silence that could be felt. The old man lay slightly on his side, and Rosmead, as he too knelt down, saw at once that all was over.

Isla's white face and terrified eyes turned to him in swift appeal.

"Will you take your horse and ride quickly for Dr. Blair? I left him at the keeper's house at Rofallion. Any of them here will tell you where it is. And even if he is gone from there the people will know what direction he took."

Rosmead rose to his feet, and on his face was a great and sad gentleness.

"I will go if you wish, my dear, but it is useless. He is dead."

Isla sprang up, and her eyes flashed.

"Dead! How dare you say that? He can't be dead--it is impossible. He was quite well this morning--better than he has been for years. I told Dr. Blair so when he wished to come and see him this very morning. Oh, if only I had let him come!"

Her hand on the shabby old bell-pull sent a hundred echoes through the house and brought Diarmid, shaking and apprehensive, to the door.

Isla turned to him sharply.

"Come, Diarmid. The General has had a fit--or something. Help to lift him up, and carry him to his room. Will you, Mr. Rosmead? Oh, thank you very much. Then if you will ride for the doctor it will be the greatest service you can render."

As they would have addressed themselves to their task she stooped and tried to release the sheet of paper from the fingers that held it like a vice. But the effort was useless. As she knelt there she was able to read the address on the one side, and, on the other, which she turned with a shaking finger, the signature of Colonel Martindale.

Then she knew what had happened.

She left the room and flew up the stairs to see that the bed was ready, and, as she heard Margaret Maclaren clucking to her handful of poultry at the kitchen door, she wondered how all the work and business of their little world could go on as before, while her life was over.

The bed was straight and the fair linen sheet turned back when Rosmead and the serving-man appeared with their burden. Even then Isla noted the extreme gentleness and power displayed by Rosmead, and from that moment he seemed, as it were, to take over her case and to legislate for her.

They laid the poor old General on his bed, and Rosmead very gently drew the lids over the staring eyes that seemed to have a great horror in them.

"Oh, go for the doctor--go quickly, for God's sake!" cried Isla--"or it will be too late."

"It is too late now," he said.

And, stepping to the toilet-table, he lifted the General's small shaving-glass that had been carried through many a campaign and laid it against his lips. There was not the faintest sign of a misty breath on it.

"It is the infallible sign, my dear. God help and comfort you! I will send your woman to you and then go after the doctor. It will be well that he should be here even if he can do nothing."

Isla, now almost convinced that her father was indeed dead, did not cry. But Rosmead never forgot the despair of her face. She bent over the prostrate figure and once more essayed to remove the letter from the gripping fingers.

Rosmead stepped forward to help her and, after a small effort, he succeeded in releasing it. She smoothed it out, folded it, and put it inside the bosom of her gown. Her face seemed to harden then till it became set like marble.

"I will never forgive Malcolm Mackinnon this!" she said under her breath, "never while I live."

Rosmead, guessing some tragedy beneath, decently turned away and went down to get his horse from the stable. As he left the house the keeper appeared, having been instructed by Isla to call for some soup for his wife.

"The doctor, sir? Yess, he iss at my hoose whatefer. At least his bicycle iss there, and he iss calling at another hoose not far away. I can bring him?--yess, inside of ten minutes. I hope there iss nothing wrong at Creagh whatefer?"

"General Mackinnon has had a seizure of some kind," answered Rosmead. "Can you go as quickly on your feet as I on my horse?"

"Quicker. Forby, there iss no need," answered the man, and he was off like lightning across the moor.

But in less than ten minutes' time he was back to say that the doctor had gone and that nobody knew the way he had taken.

Then Rosmead ascended the stairs once more, to find that they were standing about helplessly, wringing their hands, while Isla, with the desolation of death on her face, was looking out of the window.

He motioned the servants from the room, and went up to her, gently touching her arm.

"My dear," he said, and she did not even notice how he once more addressed her. "I am afraid we have missed the doctor. I will get him for you soon, but meanwhile I want you to grasp the fact that, even if he were here at this moment, there is nothing to be done. I have some knowledge of such things, and I have seen many die. It is all over, and, save for the pain to you, we ought to be glad that he suffers no more."

"Suffer!" she cried shrilly. "You don't know--no one will ever know what he suffered just then."

Unconsciously her hand touched the fold of her blouse where the letter lay. "He had a shock--yes, and it was the one thing to avoid. Oh, I have watched him all these years so that nothing came near him! But I was powerless against this evil thing that killed him at the last!"

Rosmead made no answer, understanding that she was distraught and spoke freely of that which her normal self would not have so much as mentioned in his presence.

His one concern was to get her out of the room, so that the last sad offices might be done and Mackinnon of Achree composed in the dignity of his last sleep. He managed it at last, for even with all his gentleness he was masterful. Then with his own hands he helped, guiding the tearful, but anxious and willing servants so that in a short time the death-chamber was prepared, the fair linen ready, and all done decently as it ought to be.

When he got down to the library Isla was sitting by the table, with her elbows on it, staring into space. The expression on her face hurt him. It was not woebegone, nor yet was it grief-stricken. It was only hard like the nether millstone. He understood that he had come within touch of the tragedy of these broken lives, but not an atom of curiosity stirred in him. His only concern was for her.

She looked round with a little shivering breath, and her lips essayed to move.

"I too seem to be stricken! I wish only one thing at this moment, Mr. Rosmead--that I could be lying dead beside my father."

"Yes, yes, I understand. I was only fifteen when my father died--through a gun accident that might have been averted, and I remember the horror of it yet. But yours was an old man and full of years and honours. You should see him now! He reminds me of the shock of corn fully ripe. You must think of how he was beloved in all the glens, and how, after his long service, he has received his crown from the King."

He spoke quite simply, and the hardness on Isla's face slightly relaxed.

"How kind you are! I shall never forget it!"

"I have done nothing that the merest stranger might not have done better," he made answer. "What I feel now is that I dare not leave you here alone. If you could send some one down to Lochearn--or if you know where your brother is I will find him for you. It is imperative that you should not be left here alone."

"I don't know where he is, and he shall not come in here!" she cried a little wildly. "You don't understand! Nobody understands except me, but he must not come in here."

Rosmead did not know what to say, for tragedy was in the air.

"Come," he said gently, laying a slightly compelling hand on her arm. "Let me take you upstairs. It will do you good. He looks so beautiful and so gloriously at rest. If only you will let your mind dwell on that, half the bitterness will be gone--on that and on the fact of your long and beautiful devotion to him, which has been the wonder of all the glens."

Rosmead hardly knew himself, and certainly those who knew only one side of Peter Rosmead would have been amazed to hear him now.

Isla obeyed him without the smallest demur, and when she entered the room with the drawn blinds, and looked at the still figure on the bed with the majesty of death on the noble face her tears began to flow. And for that Rosmead thanked God.

She was like a little child in his hands then, begging him not to leave her; and his tenderness, his forethought, his encompassing care were like those of a kind elder brother.

But that came to an end with the sudden, swift arrival of some fresh person at the door and with the sound of Malcolm's loud--somewhat aggressive--voice, calling his sister by name.

Rosmead stood aside while she walked steadily from the room, and he very heartily wished that it were possible for him to escape by some back staircase. He had no desire to witness what he felt must come.

Isla sped swiftly down the stairs, and on the downmost step she paused and pointed an accusing finger at her brother.

"Murderer!" she said. "Don't come a step farther. You have no right in this house, which you have destroyed!"

Malcolm looked thunder-struck, and the sight of Rosmead a few steps higher up the stair did not help to lessen the mystery.

"Why, what has happened, and why is Mr. Rosmead here? What is it?" he demanded peremptorily.

Rosmead hastened past them and went out by the door without a word. He knew that the time had come for him to go--that with what now passed in the Lodge of Creagh between the brother and sister no stranger might intermeddle. But he left the woman whom he had learned to love--left her with a pang.

Rosmead was no fool, and he guessed that the letter that had been in the General's dead hand must, in some way, have concerned his son, and that, whatever news it contained, it was the shock of it that had killed him.

This also Isla knew, and Malcolm would have to answer to his sister, to his own conscience, and to his Maker for his sin.

Rosmead's heart was heavy as he took his horse from the queer little stable of Creagh, and, mounting, rode slowly down Glenogle. The mystery of life, its awful suffering--so much of it preventible--oppressed his healthy mind like a nightmare. And always it was the innocent and the good who had to bear the full brunt.

As he rode through the clear beauty of the summer morning he took a vow that he would do what he could to make up to Isla Mackinnon--that if she would permit him he would devote his whole life to making her happy, to effacing the memory of the bitterness that her young life had known.

Only he must not be in too much haste, because the quick pride of her would resent any assumption of right on his part. Isla must be slowly and laboriously wooed. But how well worth the winning! Rosmead's outlook upon life had undergone a swift change, and now it was bounded east, west, north, and south, by the deep quiet eyes and the beautiful face of one woman.

The love that had come to him late would be the great passion of his life--a passion such as few men know. He had kept himself singularly pure and wholly detached from women. His capacity for affection had never been dissipated by lighter loves. He brought a virgin heart to lay at the feet of the woman he loved. And, in spite of the sorrow and the woe to which he had been a witness, life promised fair to Peter Rosmead that summer morning as he rode through Glenogle and watched the sheen of the sun upon hill and water and heard the birds singing their heart out in the crystal clearness of the upper air.

He would go to America and attend with a single mind to his business there, leaving the dear woman in peace. Then, when he returned at Christmas, he would see. His heart would tell him then whether it was time to speak. Few misgivings were his. He believed that Isla Mackinnon was the woman that God had given to him and that she had been kept for him through all the years of his strenuous young manhood, and that for her dear sake he had been able to live without blame and without reproach.

For that, above all else, he gave God thanks in his heart.

Meanwhile, in the Lodge on the edge of the Moor of Creagh the storm rose and raged. Malcolm, a little stupefied, kept demanding what had happened.

"He is dead!" cried Isla, in the shrill, hard tone that had no kinship with that of her usually sweet low voice. "And the thing that killed him was the letter from India--Colonel Martindale's version of the story."

"Give it to me!" said Malcolm, with an air almost of menace as he stepped to her side.

"No, I will not," she answered clearly. "It is not yours. It was father's, and now it is mine. To think that after all our watching, it should have fallen into his hands at last!"

Malcolm, very white and haggard now, moved with a step that was very unsteady into the library, Isla following, for it suddenly dawned upon her that it was unseemly to wrangle there within a step of the chamber of death.

"Tell me what has happened," he said hoarsely. "Surely you will not deny me the right to know."

"There it very little to tell," said Isla drearily. "I went out early, and before going to meet David Bain, I went to the keeper's house at Rofallion to ask for Mrs. Dugid. Then while I was waiting at the gate for David Mr. Rosmead came up."

"And David had delivered the letters, I suppose, while you were at Rofallion?"

"Yes, of course, and father opened that one, and, though he might have looked at a dozen others without comprehending their meaning, he knew the meaning of that one at once," she said.

And her face set again like the nether millstone.

She had no pity for Malcolm, she did not even in that moment of awful bitterness give him credit for one spark of decent feeling. She hardly observed that he was trembling like an aspen and that his face had grown haggard about the mouth, like that of an old man.

"Isla, I want that letter. I must have it," he said in a low voice.

She heard him as she heard him not, and his tone became more desperate.

"Did you read it, Isla?"

"No."

"Will you read it?"

"No."

"Then give it to me."

"Oh, what does it matter? The fire is the place for it--the very heart of it, where it will be consumed quickly, now that it has done its deadly work," she said drearily "Do you understand what has happened, Malcolm? Our father is dead, and it is you who have killed him, just as surely as if you had put a bullet into him."

"For God's sake, hold your tongue, Isla! You would drive a man to the edge of despair."

"What about me?" she cried in a kind of frenzy, throwing her self-control to the winds. "It is all of self you speak. Don't you understand that it is a martyrdom and nothing else that I have suffered in the last five--no, in the last ten years, ever since I was able to know the meaning of the things that happened? Through you our souls, our hearts, and sometimes our bodies have been starved in Achree, and the old place has been suffered to sink into the dust, and has finally passed into the hands of strangers. All this would not have mattered if only you had been good and brave and a little like what you ought to have been. We could have borne poverty with a smile. But it was your misdeeds, your squandering of Achree that poisoned existence for him until slowly his mind gave way. And I had to stand by and see it and be glad of it, because in that way he suffered less. But I suffered more. If there is a God in heaven He must judge this day between you and me, Malcolm Mackinnon."

"For God's sake Isla, hold your tongue!" he repeated, but his voice sounded weak and almost faint.

He was no coward in some directions, but the look on his sister's face was awful to see and her words seared themselves upon his brain. He had no idea until now of the red-hot fires of passion glowing beneath her quiet exterior. But now he knew, and the revelation never afterwards passed from his remembrance.

"I must speak just this once, for we are going to part, Malcolm; now the last bond between us is snapped. I will never forgive you. You broke my father's heart, and mine is in the dust, where it will lie till the end. I hope that you are very proud of your work."

He turned away with a deep groan and covered his face with his hands.

"Now you are the Laird of Achree," she continued, "and there is none to hinder you from making its devastation complete. As for me, I will pass away from Glenogle and never come near it any more."

He turned to her then, and his eyes looked for a moment as hers sometimes had done, full of a most wistful appeal.

"Hold hard, Isla! Don't you think I've had enough? I don't want to justify myself. I admit that the letter gave the shock, and that is punishment enough for me. Don't rub it in. Far less has sent a man to the lower-most hell."

She did not seem to comprehend the words--or even to hear them.

She appeared suddenly to be possessed by a new idea, and, undoing the pearl button of her blouse, she drew forth the letter and held it out.

"Take it. There is no use for me to keep it. I don't want to read it. It is yours."

She opened the door, passed him by, and went, bare-headed, into the drowsy sunshine, and a lark in the clear blue of the sky seemed suddenly to mock her with his wealth of full-throated song. She walked blindly, yet her feet guided her away to the great spaces of the Moor of Creagh, where she could be alone under the clear canopy of heaven and where the messengers of the Unseen were free to comfort her.

Malcolm, still shaky and trembling, looked about with the air of a man who does not know which way to turn. Then he sat him down and braced himself for the effort of reading the letter which had fallen like the crack of doom upon the old man's heart.

It was such a letter as one true friend might write to another, carefully worded so that it would not inflict any unnecessary pain. It was a letter which had cost its writer several sleepless nights--a letter of duty and friendship for a man whom he had never met, but whose name was still honoured in the service that he had adorned.

Had the Colonel known of the old man's state of health that letter would never have been written. But it told the truth--the whole truth, without varnish or embroidery, in the simple language which is all that a soldier has at his command.

Malcolm Mackinnon set his teeth as he read it, and surely in that awful moment he expiated part at least of his many sins.

After what seemed a long, long time he picked himself up heavily, crushed the letter in his hand, and threw it into the fire, where he watched it caught by a greedy flame and consumed to the uttermost edge.

Then he left the room, passed by, unseeing, the doddering Diarmid in the hall, and slowly mounted the narrow stairs.

He did not pause or falter at the door of the chamber of death, but opened it swiftly, closed it again, and walked to the side of the bed. There, for a moment, he stood in silence. Then Diarmid, listening below, heard a cry which he never forgot. It was that of a soul in an anguish which cannot be uttered.

"Forgive!" was the only word that fell brokenly from his lips as he knelt, sobbing by the bed, and laid his aching and throbbing head on the snow-white gloss of the coverlet.

The dead answered not, nor made any sign. But the peace upon the beautiful old face was that of one who has passed over, and who understands.

CHAPTER XI

VIVIEN

It was three o'clock of the afternoon before Rosmead got back to Achree, and he had not eaten any lunch. In the stable-yard he met his sister Vivien, who had gone round to look at some Aberdeen puppies, arrived that very morning.

"We have been wondering about your absence, Peter," she said with her quiet smile. "Have you had any lunch?"

"None. I have been up at the Lodge of Creagh. The old General is dead. Come back to the house, and I will tell you about it."

A groom came forward to take the horse, and Rosmead, linking his arm in his sister's, walked her away. They were devotedly attached to each other, and the wreckage of his dear and beautiful sister's life at the hands of an unprincipled man had cast a deep cloud over Rosmead which could never wholly be lifted. For every time he looked at her face, every time he thought of the possibilities of her kind nature and of the long years of loneliness in front of her his soul was filled with a holy rage. On such occasions he would have killed his brother-in-law, and thought this no sin.

Vivien Rosmead, made for love, uniting in her sweet nature all that is best in womanhood, all that makes for the precious things of life, had been cheated on its very threshold. But why had she been so blind, you ask? Why had not her finer sense warned her of the risk she ran? The answer is the one which has come from the lips of a vast army of sad women who have believed that their love could win and keep a man from his evil ways. In this some few have succeeded but a multitude have failed. Vivien had failed, and the irony and the misery of it had embittered Peter Rosmead beyond all telling.

"The old General dead!" echoed Vivien in astonishment. "But he was not even ill. His son has been here this morning and said he was very well."

"He had a shock, and he died on the spot. Heart failure, I suppose. You are needed up there, Vivien. I want you to go to-day."

Vivien looked at him questioningly, and seemed to shrink.

"But I don't know Miss Mackinnon, Peter. I've never even seen her. She has shown us very plainly that she does not wish to know us."

"That is of no consequence. This sorrow lifts the things above all such considerations. She is a woman in need--a woman suffering acutely and terribly, and she is almost utterly alone. If mother were able she would go--you know that. You must take her place. May I go back now and order a trap."

"There is plenty of time, Peter," she said, visibly shrinking yet. "It is never quite dark in these long, delightful days. Tell me what happened. Were you there with her when her father died?"

Rosmead briefly explained how the death had occurred.

"And she thinks that it was the letter that killed him? How strange and sad! Did she give you no inkling as to what it contained?"

"No. But I have my own opinion--or rather suspicions. It has something to do with her brother. As I left the house and he entered it I heard her call him a murderer."

"Oh, how dreadful and how unlikely!" cried Vivien in deepening bewilderment. "Malcolm Mackinnon does not strike one at all as that sort of person. He is so transparent--just like a big, jolly schoolboy. I like him so much."

Rosmead was not surprised to hear it. Malcolm Mackinnon had paid many visits to Achree, where he had shown the very best and most lovable side of him. He had jested with the gay Sadie, had been serious and kindly and responsible when talking to Vivien, and had sat like an attentive son by Mrs. Rosmead's invalid couch. To Rosmead himself he had been simply a good comrade, and, on the whole, the American had no fault to find with him. Yet, somehow, these words, falling from Vivien's lips, disquieted him not a little.

"I'm afraid there's something behind it all. Probably Mackinnon has sowed his wild oats, and this is the aftermath. Anyway, the old man is dead, and she is in a dreadful state. Her eyes haunt me. It is a woman she needs--mothering, in fact, and if you could bring her right down here to mother it would be a Christian act. Where's Sadie?"

"Miss Drummond came to lunch and has taken her away to Balquhidder to show her Rob Roy's grave. Then they are going to Garrion to tea. What a bright creature she is! She kept us laughing right through lunch."

"I'm rather glad, on the whole, that Sadie is not about. Well, dear, while you are getting ready I will see mother. I took a message from her to Creagh. Would you like me to go up with you, to drive you and wait outside, perhaps?"

"Just as you like. But perhaps, as you've only just come down, I had better go alone. We don't want to overwhelm her with Rosmeads."

He nodded understandingly, and they parted on the stairs, Rosmead proceeding up one of the winding ways to his mother's room.

They had not altered the interior of the old house in any way. They had only spent money to make it comfortable, covered bare stairs and passages with rich carpets of neutral tints, and gathered about them all the comforts and refinements which are at the command of wealth.

Mrs. Rosmead occupied the General's chamber, which had a large dressing-room adjoining, and from its quaint little windows she could see the Loch and the hills beyond.

She was a gentle, frail old lady, very small and delicately built, but her sweet face in its frame of snow-white hair had great strength.

It was from her undoubtedly that Rosmead had inherited his decision of character, his deeply-rooted principles, his inflexible will. He was very like her physically, and he worshipped her. Up till now no woman had ousted her from the shrine of his heart. The relation between them was indeed idyllic and did much to keep the softer side of Rosmead in the foreground.

Her keen, fine black eyes, so like his own, lifted themselves inquiringly to his face as he entered.

"Well, as you have taken such a long time to carry out my behest, I take it that you were well received, my son."

"Yes, I was, but that is not what delayed me," he answered as he bent to kiss her.

Then in a few words he made her acquainted with the tragedy of the morning. As she listened, full of grief and sympathy, she, unconsciously to herself, watched her son keenly. She saw that he was moved far beyond his wont, that his voice, when he spoke of Isla Mackinnon, vibrated with an entirely new note. And she wondered, and her desire to see the girl was quickened.

"She is the most desolate creature on God's earth, mother, and if only I could wrap you up in my arms and carry you to Creagh you could heal her with a touch, as you have so often healed your other children."

The expression "your other children" impressed her. Could it be possible that already Peter's thoughts and longings had flown as far as the day when he should give another daughter to her heart?

"You must bring her to me, dear. It is the only way."

"Vivien is going up. Next to you, she will be the best to help her. It is a woman that she needs. All her life long apparently she has been fighting side by side with men."

"Fighting!" repeated Mrs. Rosmead with a slight wonderment in her tone.

"Well, you know, she has had to do everything for and to be everything to the old man."

"But how? He has a dear son, Peter. You must not be unjust to young Mackinnon. Oh, I have heard that they say things here in the Glen about him, but when he comes here and sits by me, I believe none of them. He only needs a little guiding, and I think I have gathered from him that his sister has been a little hard on him at times."

Rosmead with Isla's most bitter cry in his ears, remained wholly unconvinced.

"The ins and outs of the story we don't know, mother. Perhaps we shall never know them. But of this I am sure--that Isla Mackinnon would be hard on no man without a cause. She is a splendid creature, and----"

"Peter, come here."

The sweet voice was peremptory, the swift, humorous black eyes were compelling. He came obediently, as of old, to her side.

"Look straight at me--no, not like that!--very straight, Peter Rosmead. Is this to be the woman?"

"Yes, mother," he answered, with the simplicity of a big child. "Please God, it is."

"Then bring her to me quickly, my son, that I may get to know and love her--ay, and to learn whether she is worthy of Peter Rosmead. I have never yet seen the woman who is."

Peter laughed, in no way uplifted by her loving pride. His nature indeed was singularly unspoiled.

"It can't be done in such a desperate hurry. She is cold and fine, and, like her own hills, she is difficult of approach. I shall have to walk warily and win her slowly. But win her I shall or go unmarried to my grave."

Thus did Peter Rosmead quite quietly dispose of the biggest thing that had come into his life. And his mother, watching the firm set of his square chin, the invincible light in his eyes, gloried in his strength, and had not the smallest doubt that he would attain the desire of his heart.

Was any pang of disappointment hers? To every mother the moment when her son takes another woman to his heart is one of supreme pain. This is as inevitable as the law of life.

But Mrs. Rosmead desired her son to marry, and she had kept him at her side a long time.

"So Vivien will go up? Is she getting ready now?"

"I think so."

"Well, bring my writing-block and pencil, and I will write a message for Miss Mackinnon."

He obeyed her, but she did not show him what she wrote. Nor was he curious to see it. He had never in all his life known her to do the wrong thing or speak the wrong word.

She was a woman in whom grace was developed to a very high degree.

Vivien came in presently, her slender, graceful figure enveloped in its capacious coat of Harris tweed, and a small neat toque of green velvet crowning her beautiful head.

"Peter has been telling you, mother. Do you think it is the right thing for me to do--to go to Creagh, I mean? I confess to a little hesitation. I am so afraid of intruding on her. Even the pride of old Virginia must pale before that of Glenogle."

"Your heart will dictate the fitting word, my child. Give this to the poor girl, and if she will come to us here to rest awhile in the house where she was born we shall try not to make her feel that we have taken her home from her."

Rosmead tucked his sister in, and, just as the horse was about to start, he spoke again.

"You won't be discouraged if it is a little difficult at first, Vivien? Try to think only of her desperate need."

"Poor old Peter," she said whimsically. "I never saw him so much in earnest about anything. I do believe he would like nothing better than to be going back himself."

Their eyes met in a smile, and she drove off, waving her hand.

He drifted about the place all the afternoon, conscious of a growing restlessness that he could not shake off, his thoughts all the while following Vivien to the Moor of Creagh.

When she arrived at the small plain house, which she now saw for the first time, a vast pity filled her heart. Creagh had beautiful surroundings, but nothing could make it a home. It was bare and uninviting--a mere shelter; and Vivien, who loved beautiful places, and who had the whole art of the Home Beautiful at her finger-ends, wondered how Isla could have borne to exchange the old-world charm of Achree for this.

She had not heard the whole story of the transaction. Rosmead had preserved a singular reticence regarding the terms of his tenancy of Achree, and Vivien merely thought that the Mackinnons either wanted the money badly or had some other family reason for letting their ancestral home.

The blinds were all down, but, as she directed the man to stop outside the gate, she could see the open door at the end of the short avenue.

"Wait here, Farquhar. I will not disturb them by driving up to the door."

She left her heavy coat on the seat, and in her neat, plain suit of blue serge walked up the short approach to the open door, where Diarmid, who had heard the rumble of wheels, stood waiting to receive her.

"Not at home," were the words ready on his lips, but something in Vivien's face arrested his attention.

"I am Mrs. Rodney Payne, Mr. Rosmead's sister, and I have come at my brother's request to see Miss Mackinnon. Do you think she would see me for a few minutes?"

Diarmid hesitated for a moment. Then he was wholly vanquished by the light in the strange lady's eyes.

"Ma'am, if you'll step inside, I'll see," he said respectfully. "She's sittin' up there in the room with him, and we can do naught with her. Maype, if she would see you, it might be better for her."

"Where is her brother?"

Diarmid shook his head.

"He hass been out of the house for 'oors, ma'am, and we are all to pieces here in Creagh, and there's nothing but dool and woe upon my folk."

Vivien's eyes became moist at this expressive phrase which, falling pathetically from the old servant's lips, adequately summed up the whole affairs of the Mackinnons.

"I am afraid," she said very gently, "that if you take my name to Miss Mackinnon she will not see me. I am going to take a great deal upon myself. If you will just show me the way I will go to her without announcement. She can only send me away."

"Yes, sure, an' that is so, but I do not think, seeing you, ma'am, that she will do that," said Diarmid earnestly, and he held open the door for her to pass in as if she had been a queen.

They trod the narrow stairs very softly. On the half-landing Diarmid paused and stood aside while he pointed with finger that trembled slightly to the closed door of the room where Mackinnon slept his last sleep.

Vivien braced herself, for the thing she was about to do was not only unusual, but might very easily be misconstrued. She took a little quick breath as her fingers closed upon the handle of the door. The next moment she turned it, slipped in, and closed it behind her again.

The blinds of the front window only were down, but the sun, now veering westward, shone in at the window in the gable-end and lay in a soft yellow flood upon the quiet room. A shaft of sunshine even lay athwart the bed, touching as it passed Isla's motionless figure, where she sat upon a chair by the bed-side, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her eyes staring straight in front of her, unseeing, uncomprehending, a look of almost hopeless misery upon her face. At sight of a strange woman in the doorway, however, she sprang up, quivering with indignation. She would have pointed to the door, to which she tried to hasten, but something in Vivien's beautiful face--some unimagined quality of rarest sympathy deterred her. She stopped with the very words of dismissal frozen on her lips.

Vivien approached quickly, laid a tender hand on her shrinking shoulder and spoke.

"My dear, my dear! I am Vivien Rosmead, I too have suffered. Come out into the sunshine and let us talk. If even we do not talk we can cry together, and that will help us both."

Isla was powerless to be angry. Her brief indignation at the intrusion of a stranger upon her most sacred privacy passed as a tale that is told.

"It is very kind of you, but--but--I hardly know you, and there is nothing to be said or done. Everything is over--that is all."

"I too have thought so, dear," said Vivien softly. "Come, my poor darling. He does not need you any more. Come, and let us talk and think of those who do."

Isla suffered herself to be led away.

Afterwards, looking back upon that incident, she was amazed at herself, at the quiet compelling power which Vivien, in common with all the Rosmeads, seemed to possess, and against which ordinary folk could not stand for a moment.

Vivien's arm was about her slender body as they descended the stairs. She it was who guided her out into the flood of the sunshine which, meeting them at the door, seemed to envelop them in a quiet radiance.

Isla, as if dazzled, put up her hands to ward it off.

"It is cruel," she said in a low, difficult voice. "How can there be any brightness when I am like this? It is very cruel."

"Where shall we go?" asked Vivien softly. "Shall we go to some spot where we shall be very, very quiet and undisturbed? I should like you to forget who I am, even what has brought me, and just to be as if I did not exist. If you feel like talking, then talk. But if you want to be quiet, I can be quiet too. Oh, my dear, I can be very, very quiet. I have been through the deeps, where there is nothing possible but dumb silence."

Isla then remembered the tragedy of Vivien Rosmead's life, and her own pity and sympathy which in times past had never failed any in need, awoke to newness of life. The frozen springs of her being leaped again with life, and, with an almost unconscious desire to help, she slipped her hand through Vivien's arm.

"Why is it that life is so full of hideous suffering for women?" she asked with a vague passion. "I used to believe in God--in all things beautiful and good. Now I believe nothing."

"Your faith will come back. Even I say that," said Vivien softly. "I don't want to belittle your suffering, dear, but it is of an impersonal kind. The woman who cannot be blamed if she loses faith is the one who has been cheated in her own self, whose womanhood has been flouted and scorned, whose love has been trampled on and despised. That is where the silent deeps are. May I say just what I will?"

"Surely," answered Isla, lifted clean out of herself by something tragic and mysterious in that other woman's face.

"Your father was an old man, full of years and honour. His life had become a little burdensome to him, and though I never saw him, I know that his fine spirit must have fretted at his forced inactivity. What you must do now is to dwell upon his rejuvenation. He has gone where there is no death, where his powers will be restored, where once more all things are possible."

Isla's hungry eyes never for a moment left the speaking face of the woman at her side.

All the time they were moving slowly, but surely, away from the house up to the wide spaces of the great moor where the great silence dwelt.

"Tell me more," was the mute question of Isla's eyes and lips.

CHAPTER XII

THE HAND IN THE DARK

"It is all true--what you say," said Isla with a little shiver. "But what is to become of me? He was my life, my work, my all. I have nothing further to do in the whole wide world. My life is over."

"There is your brother," Vivien ventured to say.

She immediately saw that she had made a mistake--that here undoubtedly lay the sting and the crux of the whole sad situation.

Isla impatiently shook herself, almost as a dog might shake from him the element of water he dislikes. She made no remark, however, except to move her head in impatient dissent.

"I have no money, no prospects, no friends, I shall have to go out into the world and earn my bread. But how? That is the curse of people in our position--we are taught nothing, we are trained to take for granted that the world exists for us, that we are in some sense a privileged class. Then there is a crash, and if we go under is it to be wondered at or are we to be blamed?"

Vivien listened in the sheerest wonder. She had no idea that things were at such a low ebb with the Mackinnons. Remembering Malcolm's airy inconsequence and his jokes about his hard-up state, which seemed to sit lightly enough upon him, she was even inclined to think Isla must be exaggerating.

It was not easy for Vivien Rosmead to realize poverty. She had been reared in a luxurious home, and had married a millionaire, and, though she had never lacked in sympathy or benevolence towards the poor, she had not known one ungratified whim. She knew that poverty existed, but it was impossible to associate its more sordid aspects with Isla Mackinnon.

"But, surely out of the estate there must be ample provision for so small a family?" she ventured to say. "Achree is not a small place. The rent of it alone----"

"It is mortgaged to the hilt," interrupted Isla with a sort of dull scorn. "I could not and would not take a penny from it."

"But surely you have relatives. Is not Sir Thomas Mackinnon of Barras a relative of yours? Some friends of ours had Barras for two seasons running."

"He is my uncle, but I couldn't be dependent on him. He is not rich, and he has his own family to provide for."

"He cannot be poor. I saw the account of his daughters' presentation frocks in the fashion papers last week," said Vivien with a slight smile.

"Oh, that means nothing! They got the loan of a house for the season, and a very clever maid of Aunt Jean's, married in London, made their frocks. You are so rich in America that you haven't an idea of the makeshifts some of us have to practise here," said Isla, waxing amazingly eloquent and convincing for Vivien's enlightenment.

Vivien did not care what the theme, so long as it roused even a passing interest in the girl's mind.

"Well, I am sure that something will happen to provide a way," she said hopefully. "It is impossible to imagine Glenogle or any of the glens without you. Have you any idea, I wonder, just how they regard you? I do not go about very much, but my sister Sadie, who has made friends for miles round, is always bringing home some fresh tales about the devotion of the people to their dear Miss Isla. Only yesterday she said quite dolefully, 'We may as well give up the ghost, Vivien. If angels and archangels came to bless Lochearn and Glenogle, they would have to walk behind Isla Mackinnon.'"

In spite of herself, Isla smiled.

"It does not mean so very much--only that I have lived all my life among them."

"It means everything," said Vivien clearly. "It means that you are in their hearts, that none of them could bear hurt or sorrow to come near you."

"Oh, but that is the hurt of it all!" cried Isla most pitifully. "The more we love people the more it hurts us to know that we are powerless to keep suffering or sorrow away from them. I would have laid down my life for my father, but I could not prevent Mal----I could not prevent others from breaking his heart."

"You did what you could, though," said Vivien, again struck by the bitter allusion to Malcolm. "Now I want to give you a message from my mother. She wishes very much to see you. If only she had been able she would have come to-day instead of me. What she wishes to say is that if you would like to take your dear father down to Achree for the last few days we can go out. It seems an odd thing to say--but we should be glad to go out. We can go to the hotel, or even back to Glasgow for a few days, or even weeks. My mother came down so comfortably in the motor that it would not be a trouble, or even a risk for her to return in it. So, dear, just say the word, and we shall be gone to-morrow so that you and your dear ones may come home to your own place. This is a note from my mother to you in which she proposes this!"

Isla took the note with a murmured word of acknowledgment. She was much moved. She stood still on the green tops of the heather, and something indescribable swept across her face. She stretched out her arms so that they fell on Vivien's shoulders, and when she was drawn into her tender embrace she laid her head down on her breast.

"Oh, now I know what dear people you are! God bless you! I should like to do that if it would not hurt or trouble you. Then all the people he loved and who loved him can come and see him before they take him away to Balquhidder. Oh, thank you, thank you, I want to come and see your dear mother. I will go back with you now if you will take me."

She was like a creature transformed, and while the sight touched Vivien Rosmead inexpressibly it also filled her with a great sadness. For, if this was how Isla Mackinnon regarded the house of her fathers, what must it be to her to see strangers in it and to have before her eyes the prospect of losing it altogether?

"Come, then," said Vivien with alacrity. "The evenings are so long and golden now that we can easily bring you back before dark. My brother will drive you himself."

"I am thinking," said Isla, and as they turned to go, it almost seemed as if the spring had come back to her step, "I am thinking why should you go out? There is plenty of room for us all. If you would only lend us one or two rooms for a few days and let us have the freedom of the house----"

"It would not be the same at all," said Vivien decidedly. "What you want is to shut the door upon the outside world and forget all about us, to have only your own people about you and to have to consider nobody but them. It is only in this way that my mother will arrange it. I am sure that you will find that this is the best arrangement?"

"It is a great thing for you to do," said Isla breathlessly. "I have never heard or known of anybody who would think of a thing so beautiful."

"Oh, nonsense. There are many far more beautiful things done in the world every day, and nobody hears of them. It will cost us nothing, you see. And, moreover, it is the right thing to do. It would be clearly wrong for the Chief of the Mackinnons to be carried to his last rest from this lonely and inaccessible place, beautiful though it is. He ought to be--he must be, borne from the house of his fathers."

"Yes, yes," said Isla, with a little sob in her voice. "To think that you feel like that, that--you understand everything! Now, I'm so very glad that you have Achree."

Her hardness had melted and the desperate hunted look had gone from her eyes. Once more she was alert, full of affairs, thinking of all there was to do and ready for all emergencies.

As she drove down Glenogle beside the smart groom on the front seat of the dogcart her face did not once lose its uplifted look.

Her eyes swam in tears as Vivien and she swept through the familiar gates of Achree.

"Tell me, dear Mrs. Rodney Payne, was it your mother her own self, who thought of this--this beautiful thing?"

"No, my dear," answered Vivien quietly, "it was my brother. He is like that. He thinks always of the thing that will make most people happy and of how to do it in the happiest way."

"I thought he was like that when he was up at Creagh with me to-day," said Isla simply. "What it must be to have a brother like that--a brother who thinks of others first!"

But she paused there, and it was as if she rebuked herself.

Peter Rosmead, from the window of his dressing-room, where he was getting ready for dinner, was thunderstruck by the vision of Isla Mackinnon driving up to the door.

"Bravo, Vivien!" he said to himself, and his pulses quickened as he made haste with his black tie, achieving a bow less pleasing than usual to his fastidious taste.

He had reached the bottom of the stair when his sister and Isla came in by the hall door; and, seeing him for the first time in evening dress, Isla was immediately struck by his air of distinction.

"I have come to see your mother, Mr. Rosmead," she said simply. "I can't say any more. Your sister must explain and say all that is necessary for me. Where shall I find your mother?"

It was Peter who took her to the door of his mother's room, nay, who entered it with her. Isla herself saw no significance in that simple and natural act, but Peter, who intended it to be significant, felt a high courage, an indefinable joy at his heart.

"Mother, this is Miss Mackinnon. Vivien has been so fortunate as to get her to come down."

Isla stood still just inside the door, looking wistfully--even questioningly at the small elegant figure on the couch, at the beautiful, softly-coloured face framed by its white hair, and her eyes had a yearning look.

She had never known her mother and, though Aunt Jean had been passing kind, there was little softness about her. Certainly she had never sought to mother the self-reliant, independent Isla, even when she was only a long-limbed girl, needing guiding and making many mistakes.

Sweetness and love had been the rule of Mrs. Rosmead's life. By these she had won and kept her children so near and close to her that they kept nothing hidden from her.

Her eyes, too, were full of questioning as they travelled to the girl's pale pathetic face. Peter had been no common son to her, and it was to no common woman that she could give him up.

"Come here, my dear. You have no mother. I have room for you in my heart," she said.

And Rosmead, with smarting eyes, went out by the door and closed it very softly behind him.

"God bless her! God bless them both!" he said very softly, under his breath, as he went down to Vivien.

"I am all blown to pieces by the winds of the Moor of Creagh, Peterkin," she said. "If you are very good you can come up and sit in my dressing-room while I make myself decent. Then I can tell you what happened."

This dear intimacy, so precious to them both, had never been more precious than on that night. Half an hour later Isla sat down to eat with them in the old familiar room, and by that time the distress, the strain, the awful hopeless misery had gone from her face. She talked quite rationally and naturally of all the affairs of the Glen, and when she said that she would like to go home as soon after dinner as they could conveniently let her away, Peter asked whether he might have the privilege of driving her.

She thanked him with her eyes.

"Where I have to be grateful for so much there are not any words left," she said simply. "I will say good-bye to your mother, if you please, only until to-morrow."

"You are coming back to Achree to-morrow, then?" said Rosmead, when, with exceeding care and gentleness, he had tucked her into the comfortable cart.

"Yes, to-morrow. May we talk of it as we go up? I don't know how to thank you for so kindly driving me home. When I think of what otherwise it would have been like, I am quite speechless."

"So much the better," he answered with a smile. "Look back, dear Miss Mackinnon. The girls are waving to you."

Isla turned round in her seat and blew a kiss on the wings of the evening breeze.

"Is it Mrs. Hylton P. Rosmead--eh, Vivien?" said Sadie whimsically. "Did you ever see anyone more mightily pleased with himself than our Peterkin?"

Vivien smiled, but said neither yea nor nay.

"What have you arranged with my mother, then?" asked Rosmead.

"We are to come down to-morrow evening, Mr. Rosmead. She says you will take her to Glasgow in the car to-morrow. Are you quite sure it can be done comfortably?"

"Quite. Then, you and your brother will bring him down to Achree to-morrow? I suppose Mr. Mackinnon will make all the necessary arrangements."

Isla was silent, a little chill creeping all over her and causing her to shiver. Her companion bent over her anxiously.

"I had forgotten Malcolm," she said quite frankly. "I have always been used to arrange things for my father, you see."

"I understand. But now your brother is the head of the house," said Rosmead gently. "Probably I shall see him when we get up to Creagh, and can make the final arrangements with him. I should like to tell him that the Achree stables are at his disposal. We shall all go to-morrow by the car, and so you will be perfectly free of the house."

"Thank you very much," said Isla.

But her voice was very low, and the spiritless note had crept into it again. Rosmead found the sudden change difficult to grasp, and it confirmed him in the opinion that there was some serious breach between the brother and sister.

"When do you propose that the burial shall take place, and where will it be?"

"The Mackinnon burying-place is at Balquhidder, of course," she said, as if surprised at the question. "I have not thought about the day, but probably now it must be Monday."

They became silent then, driving in the track of the young moon towards the hills and the moor of the great silence. Isla felt no need of speech. A great sense of peace and comfort was hers as she nestled there by Rosmead's side, the thick frieze of his driving-coat making for her a buttress from the wind. She, who had so long cared for others was fully conscious of the sweetness of being cared for. She was in no haste for the drive to end.

Up at the Lodge of Creagh there was desolation and woe--and there also was the brother between whom and herself there was a great gulf fixed. She had not seen him since she had driven him forth from her presence with hard words, and she had no idea of the dreary vigil he had kept, wrestling with remorse and shame up there on the heather of Creagh.

Rosmead was perfectly happy. He loved this woman with a great and growing love, and her nearness to him filled all his being. To render her the smallest service was such a joy to him that just then he asked for no more. All the chivalry of a singularly chivalrous race, all the fine gallant tenderness of the best in old Virginia was uppermost in Rosmead that night, which for both was a night of remembrance.

"I shall always think of this night," said Isla very low as they drew near to the gate of Creagh. "This afternoon I thought it would close in despair. It is you and your dear people who have lifted me out of it, and God will bless and reward you. I never can."

Rosmead, greatly daring, took the small gloved hand which lay outside the rug and raised it to his lips. But no word did he speak, good nor bad.

Presently Isla made a little exclamation of surprise.

"There is a machine of some kind at the door, Mr. Rosmead. Don't you see the lights?" she said rather excitedly. "I wonder who it can be at this time of night. It must be nearly nine o'clock.'

"Close on it. Probably it is some neighbour calling on your brother."

"It might be Mr. Drummond from Garrion. I know of nobody else who would take the trouble," said Isla.

A minute later she proved her surmise to be right. The high-stepping Garrion roans were champing their bits and pawing the ground in front of the narrow doorway.

Rosmead sprang down and with great tenderness helped Isla to alight.

"You will come in of course, as you wish to see my brother."

"I will come in if you desire it, but I do not forget that older friends may have the prior right, Miss Mackinnon."

"I do desire it. It will be a help to me," she said.

And together they passed over the threshold. Diarmid hastened out to meet them, and behind, from the library, came Malcolm and Neil Drummond.

Rosmead, while apparently observing nothing, took note of two things--the curious, half-shrinking, half-defiant expression on Malcolm Mackinnon's face, and the distinct antagonism that marked the manner of Neil Drummond towards himself.

"So you have come back, Isla?" said Malcolm awkwardly. "Neil and I were just discussing whether we should come to Achree to fetch you."

"Mr. Rosmead was so kind as to bring me up, and I think he wishes to speak to you, Malcolm," said Isla. "Good evening, Neil."

Neil came forward with outstretched hand, his honest eyes full of deepest sympathy and compassion.

"I need not say what I feel about this, Isla. I heard it at Strathyre this evening, at six o'clock, and I couldn't believe it. I was only on my bicycle, so I went home straight and got the horses. My dear, this is a terrible thing."

Isla nodded and, seeing that Malcolm had disappeared into the library with Rosmead, she asked Neil to come to the little dining-room which he and Malcolm had recently left, and where the remains of Malcolm's evening meal still stood on the table.

Drummond closed the door, and Isla sat down, as if very weary. He was surprised to behold her so calm and self-possessed.

"What took you away to Achree, Isla?" he asked jealously. "Malcolm has been frightfully anxious about you."

"He needn't have been. I left a message with Diarmid," she answered listlessly.

"But it seemed odd for you to go there to these new people. They are not your friends, Isla. We have a better right."

"Not my friends!" she said in tones of wonderment. "You say that because you don't understand--because you don't know what they are. I think there cannot be many people like them in the world, Neil. Do you know that they are all turning out of Achree to-morrow--even the frail invalid mother--and going right back to Glasgow on their motor-car in order that we may have Achree to ourselves for the funeral?"

Drummond looked the surprise he felt.

"Are they, though? That is uncommonly good of them," he admitted, though only half-heartedly. "Then, you go back to Achree to-morrow with the poor old General?"

"Yes. Mr. Rosmead is arranging the whole matter with Malcolm now, I expect. I am very tired, Neil. I think I shall have to go to bed soon."

"Yes, of course--poor dear girl, you must be! Kitty sent her love. She would have come over with me, she said, only she was not sure whether you would be able to see people. She will come over to-morrow if you'll give her leave."

"Very kind," murmured Isla, thinking of the woman who had not waited for leave--who had come of her own free will and gathered her to her heart. "I don't think she should come to-morrow, Neil," she said, rousing herself with an effort on perceiving his disappointment. "I shall be busy most of the day, you see. To-morrow night, perhaps--if you don't mind. It will not be so far to come to Achree as up here. Give her my love."

Drummond shifted rather restlessly from one foot to the other.

"Isla, I hate to say it, but it is what I feel. I'm beastly jealous of these American outsiders. You must not let them absorb you. Of course we know that their money can do a lot of things. We can't all afford thousand pound motors for quick transit, but our hearts are in the right place and we'd go down on our knees to serve you--every one of us."

Isla's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"I know, Neil. Don't trouble about it. They have been very kind. Of course I know that if you had had Achree you would have done just the same thing. Was that Malcolm calling? We had better go out."

Neil opened the door, and they passed into the narrow hall again, where Malcolm and Rosmead stood together.

For just the fraction of a moment nobody spoke.

"Mr. Rosmead has told me of their great, unheard-of kindness, Isla," said Malcolm in a queer strained voice, "and we have arranged it all. To-morrow afternoon--late about six o'clock we shall take him down to Achree. Mr. Rosmead is to run his fast motor to Callander in the morning in order to make the necessary arrangements. I have told him we can't thank him."

"No," answered Isla very low, "we can't."

"That's all right," said Rosmead cheerily. "Good night then, Miss Mackinnon. Go to bed and have a good sleep. Good night, Mr. Drummond."

"Good night," said Neil, and he affected not to see the outstretched hand.

Rosmead took no offence. He was too big-hearted, and perhaps he had an inkling of how it was with the young man.

"I had better go, too, I suppose," said Neil a little stiffly, and Isla bade them both good night.

When Malcolm returned from seeing them off he could not find Isla, and when he went upstairs her door was shut.

He tapped lightly at it, and she opened it just a few inches.

"You'll excuse me to-night, won't you, Malcolm?" she said gently but coldly. "I am very tired. I couldn't discuss anything to-night. To-morrow we can talk things over, but I want just to say that I am sorry I spoke as I did this afternoon. He would not have liked it, I am sure."

Malcolm had not a word to say. He murmured good night and went downstairs to the lonely hearth, where he tried to extract some comfort from his pipe.

But his quiet was disturbed by the low sound of his sister's sobbing from the room above.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PASSING OF MACKINNON

A chamber-maid at the St. Enoch's Hotel in Glasgow brought a sheaf of letters to Rosmead along with shaving-water on Monday morning at half-past seven.

He glanced over them with quick carelessness, and, finding one small, square, black-edged envelope, addressed in a handwriting that he did not know, he quickly broke the seal, which bore an unfamiliar coat of arms. Once more his pulses beat high, for this was the first time Isla Mackinnon had written to him, and over a man in love the handwriting of the woman he loves wields a surprising power.

Thus did Isla write to Rosmead, and the few simple words meant more from her than whole pages of words from most women. She did not possess the gift of expression, but could only write of real things, and when these were done with the letter came to an end:--

"ACHREE, Saturday night.

"DEAR MR. ROSMEAD,--I am writing to say that I hope--that we all hope--that you will be able to spare the time to come out to Lochearnhead on Monday to attend my father's funeral.

"It is arranged for twelve o'clock from here, and will arrive at Balquhidder Kirkyard at half-past one, which suits the trains from both the north and the south.

"Perhaps you do not know the customs of our country, but it would please me if you would take one of the cords of the coffin as they lower it into the grave. These are taken by relatives and friends only, and, God knows, you have been a friend. It is arranged that if you are there some one will give you your place.

"My uncle, Sir Thomas Mackinnon, arrived from London to-day. He is my father's only living relative.

"Perhaps you will find it convenient either to come by the train or to drive in your motor straight to Balquhidder, in which case I should not see you.

"Please to tell your mother that by Thursday of this week I shall have gone back to Creagh or shall have gone away somewhere else. What I really mean to say is that Achree will be ready for her return. I cannot say more.

"I am, sincerely yours,

"ISLA MACKINNON."

Rosmead forgot all about his shaving-water until it grew cold, and he had to ring for more.

He had longed with a great longing to go out to the burying of Mackinnon, but he had not contemplated doing so without invitation. And, lo! the invitation had come from Isla herself, couched in warm, friendly terms which no man--least of all Rosmead--could resist.

There was a glow at his heart as he stood before the mirror, attending to the duties of his toilet, noticing for the first time, with a kind of silent rage, the lines on his face and the evidences of middle-age beginning to creep about his mouth and temples. He wanted to be for ever young for her dear sake.

She had, in the midst of her forlorn grief, taken time and thought to write to him to offer him what he understood was a family privilege, and he would go--oh, yes, there was no car fast enough to take him--right to her door, to her very feet!

Away with the train or car that would convey him only to Balquhidder when Isla had expressed even the faintest desire to see him! It would be their last meeting until he could return from America, for on Thursday he must set out upon the journey which never in all his life had he been so loth to take.

He pondered on all the details of the day in front of him, and, by copious use of the telephone in his room, had arranged them all before he went down to breakfast. He did not wait for his sisters. There was nothing to hurry them in the mornings in Glasgow, and generally they breakfasted with their mother in her sitting-room.

At nine o'clock, dressed in full motor garb, he tapped at his mother's door.

"I have had a letter from Miss Mackinnon this morning, asking me to go out to the funeral at Achree, and I'm going now. It will take me quite all my time to get there by noon."

Mrs. Rosmead smiled upon him, well pleased. She did not ask to see the letter. She only bade him take care of himself and give her love to Isla, and to assure her that there was no need to hurry away from Achree. He felt glad that neither of his sisters had yet appeared. He left a message for them and went off to the waiting car, ready for what lay in front of him.

It was not a very pleasant day in the city. There was a light fog hanging over it, through which a fine rain was beginning to filter dismally. But when they got away from the river-bed the rain stopped, and, though the sky remained grey and pensive, it was fair overhead.

No sun shone all the way, and when he came to the hills Rosmead thought it was an ideal day for a burying--just typical of the grief which overshadowed a whole glen. The sky was grey and very soft, and a mist lay upon the hills, while the heaviness of unshed tears was in the soundless air.

About eleven o'clock Rosmead, who had had a splendid run without mishap or stop, swept by the incomparable beauty of Loch Lubnaig, through bonnie Strathyre, and down upon the valley of the Earn.

Long before he reached it he was struck by the signs of activity on the usually quiet and lonely road. All sorts and conditions of vehicles moved towards Glenogle, containing all sorts and conditions of people. At the hotel door there was quite a medley of waiting traps. Rosmead drew up there and went inside to remove his motor garb and to put on the decent mourning, safely stowed at the back of the car.

He looked graver and older in the tall silk hat and dark overcoat with the black band on the arm, and he was respectfully recognized by many.

The story of how of their own accord the Americans had vacated Achree in order that the family might have it to themselves for such a great occasion had got about in the glens. It had filled all who heard it with a sort of personal gratitude and appreciation that was bound to have an aftermath. They did not love the stranger--especially the American stranger--in these remote Highland glens, though his money was sometimes necessary to the comfort of their existence. They accepted him as inevitable, like motor-cars, and new railway lines cutting into their fair hill-sides and ugly viaducts spanning their wimpling burns--all necessary evils which must be endured with fortitude.

Driving very slowly towards Achree, Rosmead was astonished at the increasing number of people both in vehicles and on foot. He was unaware that in Scotland a burying--especially the burying of a great chief--is a public event, in which every man, woman, and child of the district takes a personal interest. Everybody came as a matter of course to see Mackinnon of Achree laid to rest, and all were made welcome, though no invitations, in the ordinary sense, had been sent out.

In some doubt as to whether he should take his car up to the house, Rosmead addressed himself to a policeman--a most unusual spectacle in Glenogle--who was on duty at the gate.

"Mr. Rosmead, sir, I think?" said the man, touching his hat.

"Yes, my man."

"Then you are to go up, please. I had my orders this morning. They are expecting you at the house."

Rosmead gave the order to drive slowly, and presently he came within sight of the house where the cortège stood before the open door. There were two other cars, and the Garrion roans were conspicuous at the bend of the avenue.

Rosmead alighted and walked over to the door where Diarmid was on the look-out.

"Mr. Rosmead, sir. I haf a message from Miss Isla for you, if it pe that she would not see you pefore you leave."

"Yes, my man."

"She says will you please come pack to the house if you can spare the time after you haf peen at Balquhidder, as she would like to speak with you, whatefer."

Rosmead silently nodded. Had the American boat sailed that very afternoon it is safe to say that one passenger at least would have failed to take his berth.

Diarmid, very respectful with a touch of gratitude in his mien, waited upon Rosmead and finally ushered him to the library where a small company were already assembled for the service that was to take place at a quarter to twelve.

Malcolm, very pale and slightly haggard, came forward immediately to greet Rosmead, whom he introduced to his uncle.

"Happy to meet you, sir," said Sir Tom, as his great hand grasped the American's slender one in a grip of iron. "We, as a family, will not readily forget your kindness at this time to the son and daughter of my poor brother. It was a Christian act, sir--a Christian act."

Rosmead asked him not to say more, passing it over as if ashamed that so much should be made of it. Then he stepped back and looked about at the people in the room. Some of them he recognized, but Neil Drummond, sourly resentful of his intimate presence there, unaware, of course, that he came by Isla's special invitation, did not suffer his eyes to alight on his face.

Rosmead was impressed by the circumstance that there were no flowers upon the coffin--only the Union Jack and the old soldier's sword, to the hilt of which was tied a bunch of white heather. All was simple, severe, and impressive. The short service was quickly over. Then a sudden, weird sound broke upon the listening ears--the wailing of the pipes, which filled the soundless air with a melancholy music.

All this time Isla had not appeared, and Rosmead strained his eyes in vain for a sight of her. But it was denied him, and he had not even asked for her welfare.

It was a great burying, the like of which had not been seen in the glens for many a year. As the cortège, half a mile long, slowly defiled through Lochearnhead it was joined by a score or more of vehicles that waited it there. And so it was all the way to the Braes of Balquhidder.

Rosmead, who had left his car at Achree and entered one of the mourning coaches, felt the impressiveness of the whole scene, and was almost moved to tears when they turned away from the grave to the sweet haunting strains of the "Flowers of the Forest".

As the mourners fell away slowly from the grave-side some one touched his arm.

"I shall be glad if you will drive back to Achree with me, Mr. Rosmead," said the voice of Sir Thomas Mackinnon. "I should like to have a little talk with you."

This was noted by the curious, and it was afterwards said that more attention could not have been paid to the American if he had been sib to the Mackinnons. But there was not one who added that the attention was misplaced.

"A sad affair, isn't it, for those who are left?" said Sir Thomas as they drove slowly away, "for my niece especially. You see, her father was her life-work, so to speak, and now that it is taken out of her hands she will feel stranded for a bit."

"Miss Mackinnon is one who will always find something to occupy her heart and her hands," said Rosmead.

Uncle Tom assented.

"They tell me you have Achree on an option, Mr. Rosmead," he said--and it was evident that that was the thing uppermost in his mind. "I hope that you like the place, and feel minded to stop on."

"I should like to, but I have not yet had any conversation about it. I shall have to see Mr. Mackinnon to-day, as I leave Scotland on Thursday."

"You leave Scotland? But I understood that you were here indefinitely."

"No. The business which brought me is concluded, and there is work lying to my hand in America."

"Then, do you leave your ladies here?"

"Yes, for six months. Our tenancy of Achree does not expire till the end of October, and nothing, therefore, need be decided now. But I think that my mother likes the place so well that we might take a lease of it--that is, if Mr. Mackinnon does not wish possession for himself. Will the General's death alter nothing?"

"Nothing. They can't afford to live in Achree--and that's the plain truth of it, Mr. Rosmead. In these days very few of us can afford to live in the place of our fathers. Here am I stranded in a London house, like a bull in a china shop. I loathe the life, but I haven't any choice. A relation of my wife offered the loan of the house for the season: my girls had to come out, and we couldn't afford to refuse. I don't know what's to become of us now, as our mourning will stop all the gaiety. But about the Achree Mackinnons? It is a most unfortunate thing that Malcolm resigned his commission just when he did. Of course, it was on his father's account. The best thing he could do would be to try and get back to the Army. I haven't approached him on the subject--that is, closely. He seems uncommonly touchy about it. So does Isla. But it stands to reason and common sense that he can't loaf about Glenogle."

"No. I can imagine that would be quite impossible. But if he does not return to the Army he will probably seek something else. There is room in the colonies for such as he."

"Is there?" inquired Sir Tom with the doubtful air of a man who would be difficult to convince. "Well, they present a problem. She must come back with me to her aunt in London. I don't see what else is to be done with her. She can't remain eating her heart out in that God-forsaken place up at Creagh. I'll never believe anything but that the change killed my brother Donald."

Rosmead recalled the picture of the General's prostrate figure on the narrow hearthrug at Creagh, the letter clasped like a vice in the poor dead fingers, and he had his own thoughts. Such at least had not been Isla's opinion, but it was certainly no part of his business to stir up strife or sow the seeds of suspicion among the members of the family, who were evidently outside the real issue of the case.

Sir Tom was very friendly and communicative, talking to the strange American as if he had been at least an intimate friend of the family--an attitude which was largely due to what Isla had said about the vacating of Achree.

Just a few of the mourners went back to the house for tea, and perhaps to hear whether there was a will. But, though Cattanach was present, there was no mention of a will, and it was speedily whispered about that the General had left none. It was quite well known that for five years at least he had not been capable of transacting business, and, as he had had practically no money to dispose of, and the estate had to pass in entail to his only son, a will would have been superfluous.

But it was of Isla that most of them were thinking, and when they watched the slender, black-robed figure so quietly dispensing tea in the drawing-room, assisted by Kitty Drummond, they wondered what her future was to be.

Neil Drummond was there also, and had taken up his position close to the tea-table, with the result that Rosmead could not get near for a private word.

But his mind was made up that he would not leave Achree until he had seen Isla by herself to bid her good-bye.

He was in no haste--he never was in any of the affairs of life--having proved that most things come to the man who bides his time. But perhaps just there he made one mistake, arising from ignorance of the quick Celtic temperament, which cannot brook slowness or delay.

Isla's eyes met his just once across the room, and there was quite clearly a message for him in the look. It bade him wait.

When all the tea had been served, and she had answered as composedly as she could the remarks made to her by Neil, she rose and quite deliberately walked across the room to the place where Rosmead stood talking to her Uncle Tom.

"You have a long way to go back to Glasgow, Mr. Rosmead. Are you in haste to leave us?"

"Not in haste to leave you, but I must be going soon. Can I speak with you for a few minutes?"

"Yes, it is why I have come. Will you come down to the library?" she said.

And Neil Drummond, with eyes that had something of the baleful glow of the watch-fires in them, had the chagrin of beholding them leave the room together, as if it were quite a matter of course.

"Don t you think that American bounder has presumed a lot to-day, Malcolm?" he said gruffly to Mackinnon, who happened to pass near him at the moment.

Malcolm looked the surprise he felt.

"I don't think so, Neil. He has been most awfully kind, don't you know? I dare say Isla has some message for his mother about when they can come back to the house."

Neil tried to accept this perfectly feasible explanation, but if he had seen the two talking earnestly together at the library window his mind would undoubtedly have been most seriously disturbed.

"It was so very kind of you to come to-day and take all the trouble for us," said Isla, as the door closed upon them. "Do you still intend to sail away on Thursday?"

"On Friday. My boat sails from Liverpool," he corrected gently. "I go to London on Thursday."

"And when will you come back?"

"Not before Christmas, I am afraid. I've had more than six months' furlough already, you see, and I haven't the ghost of an excuse for stopping on this side any longer."

"Except your mother. You will not like leaving her, I am sure."

"I don't. But she is accustomed to my journeyings to and fro in the earth and up and down in it. I shall be very happy, thinking of her here in this house. She has never felt so much at home since she left Virginia. I have had a talk with your brother, and it is practically settled that we take a two years' lease of Achree. I was fortunate in finding Cattanach here to-day also, and so the thing can be put on a proper basis without delay."

"Yes," said Isla, and her tone had a singularly spiritless note in it.

He looked steadily into her face, wondering just how much he might say, or whether he might say anything at all. But she was not looking at him. She was thinking how strange it would be to realize that this man had gone away clean out of the Glen, and that soon the ocean would roll between him and her. She had never felt so in her life about any human being outside of her family circle, and she was disturbed.