Front matter (continued 6)

"You are very kind to speak like that. I hope I may be going to be of use to you. That is the only excuse for my presence here."

"Well that is a speech! Most of them have come to serve their own ends, and--would you believe it, Miss Mackinnon?--though this is my house, and all that it contains is mine, I have sometimes felt among them all that I hadn't a single friend."

"I shall be your friend while I am here," said Isla quite simply, and without the smallest intention of gushing or flattering.

To her surprise a small sob suddenly broke from the lips of the woman on the couch.

"I don't pray much or often to God, my dear, but I do believe that He has sent you to me this time. There is a clear light about you--it shines in your eyes. I am sure that you are true and good."

"I try to be. But now you must rest a little, and later on I'll come and get you ready to go down to dinner."

"Oh, but, my dear, I don't go down. They haven't laid a place for me for months."

"But they'll lay one for you to-night, or I shall dine here with you," said Isla quite quietly.

She did not add that nothing on earth would induce her to dine tête-à-tête with Mr. Bodley-Chard.

CHAPTER XXIII

AT CROSS PURPOSES

Isla did not see her employer till ten o'clock next morning, by which time she had breakfasted tête-à-tête with Mr. Bodley-Chard. When she was asked to go to Mrs. Chard's room the expression of her face indicated that she had not had a pleasant morning.

Mrs. Chard was not yet out of her bedroom, which communicated with the boudoir by folding-doors. She was lying down, but her pale face brightened at sight of Isla.

"Good morning, dear. I wanted to see you ever so long ago, but Edgar said you had not time to come."

"Oh," said Isla stiffly, "I did not know you wanted me, or I should have been here sooner. I hope you slept well and feel better this morning?"

"I sleep too much, I think," she said with a weary yawn. "I was asleep by half-past nine last night, and I'm not long awake. Yes--I've had breakfast, all I ever do take. Sit down, and tell me what you have been about. Did you have a comfortable night, and did they get you all you wanted?"

"Everything. My wants are simple, and I can help myself. The housemaid is very kind and attentive."

"And you gave Edgar his breakfast? I hope you enjoyed that. Isn't he charming? And I must tell you a great secret. He is charmed with you. I am so glad, because I've had such trouble with my lady-housekeepers. Either they could not get on with my husband, or they wanted to be with him too much. Women are so tiresome and so catty to one another."

Isla repressed an inordinate desire to laugh.

"Tell me what you talked about, won't you?" Mrs. Chard continued. "It's being kept in the dark in my own house that I hate so much. It isn't fair--do you think it is? For, after all, though I am not strong I do take an interest in things."

"I didn't say much. Mr. Chard talked a good deal--principally about you."

"Oh, indeed; and what did he say? Told you all sorts of naughty things, I suppose?"

The spectacle of this elderly woman waxing coquettish on the subject of her husband filled Isla with a curious mixture of pity and amusement.

"No. He was chiefly trying to impress on me the fact that you are very ill and that you require to be kept quiet and not worried in the least."

"Dear Edgar! he is most considerate! He quite spoils me."

"I was very much surprised to hear that you had no doctor in attendance, Mrs. Bodley-Chard. Wouldn't it be better for you to see some one?"

Mrs. Bodley-Chard uplifted her hands in mute protest.

"Doctors! I've spent fortunes on them, and they've never done me the smallest good. The last one I had--a man from Mount Street, a very new broom who was going to sweep the West End quite clean--quarrelled with Edgar. What do you think? He actually had the audacity to say that there was nothing whatever the matter with me and that, if I were a poor woman who had to get my living, I should be going about quite well."

Isla privately wished she knew that doctor. She felt sure that she should like him.

"But perhaps, though he need not have put it so harshly, there was a grain of truth in what he said, and at least it was an honest expression of opinion."

"Edgar was furious and kicked him out of the house--not actually, you know, but he told him very plainly what he thought of him. They had a frightful row, and he said all sorts of things to Edgar--impertinent, even libellous things. Poor dear, he was very good about it, and, for my sake, took no further steps against Dr. Stephens, because he did not wish me to be worried."

"And since then?"

"Since then I haven't had anybody, and I'm just as well without anybody. Edgar is very clever. He studied medicine for a time before he went on the Stock Exchange, and I believe that it was because Stephens found that he knew a little too much that they quarrelled as they did. Edgar gives me all the medicine I need, which isn't much--chiefly, sleeping-draughts. I used to have such dreadful nights before he took me in hand. Fancy! Dr. Stephens wanted to stop the sleeping-draughts."

"I don't wonder at that," said Isla quickly. "I should like to stop them, too."

"You'd never be so cruel. Nobody would. Why, they are my greatest comfort. I suffer so with my head."

"But it is very dangerous to use them, as you do, without proper medical supervision."

"But, you see, I have medical supervision. My husband quite understands all about them."

"It is very dangerous," asserted Isla firmly, "and I am surprised that Mr. Bodley-Chard does not see it."

"Ah, now you are going to be cross and horrid, just as my first husband used to be. He hated ill-health. He was one of those great big, overpowering sort of men who never have a day's illness in their lives. But he dropped down dead suddenly one day when we were lunching in the city together. Oh, it was dreadful! I can never forget Edgar's kindness at that time. He was Mr. Bodley's chief clerk and understood all his business. So, you see, when I married him it made everything very easy. I have not the smallest trouble about money now."

Isla listened to all this with very mixed feelings, and she tried to be just in her judgment of Mr. Bodley-Chard. But she found that the most difficult of all the tasks set her at Hans Crescent.

She tried to change the subject.

"It's a beautiful morning, Mrs. Chard. Won't you let me help you to dress so that we may get out in the sunshine? Have you a carriage?"

"Not now. We simply job one at Burdett's. But I don't want to go out, thank you. Edgar is so afraid of a chill for me. We are very happy, Miss Mackinnon," she said with a small touch of dull defiance in her heavy eyes. "In spite of the ten years' difference in our ages, I could not have a more devoted husband. Mr. Bodley was so different! He was the sort of man who makes people run about for him, and he used to shout at the servants dreadfully. Not but what he was kind enough and generous enough, too, in his way. But he had not dear Edgar's delicacy of feeling. He is never cross, however put out he may be. He says that a gentleman's first duty is to control his temper."

Isla listened to this eulogy wholly unmoved. She had by this time arrived at the conclusion that Mrs. Bodley-Chard's mental faculties were impaired by bodily weakness and by indulgence in some form of narcotic. She made up her mind very quietly to do what she could to combat the unwholesome forces which surrounded this woman's life, and already she had vague ideas of her plan of campaign. If only she could persuade Mrs. Chard to call in that Mount Street doctor, between them they might manage to bring her back to the plane of active, healthy life.

Isla's practised eye told her that there was no actual disease, but that her hypochondriacal weakness had been so pandered to that she had completely lost her will-power. It was a sad spectacle, and Isla rose with courage to the idea of working some improvement.

She must go warily, however, realizing the fact that she had much prejudice to overcome. With Mr. Bodley-Chard's opinion or attitude in the matter she did not concern herself. She was his wife's servant, and she would do her duty by her.

Isla's introduction to this domestic drama was the very best thing that could have happened to her just then. She threw herself heart and soul into it with all the ardour of her Celtic temperament; only she was liable to err in the haste and impulsiveness with which she desired to act.

"Then you won't go out to-day?" she said coaxingly--"not even after I have been out and reported on the sunshine?"

"Not to-day--another day perhaps, and if Edgar likes the idea we could all have a little drive together. I'm going to sleep again now. Did you ever see such a sleepy-head?"

Isla had her own thoughts as she left the room to interview the cook and to take up her position definitely in the household. That part of her business presented no difficulties whatever. The one thing that filled her with misgiving was the physical and mental condition of Mrs. Bodley-Chard.

Her dislike of the husband had increased after her conversation with him at the breakfast table. He had started by being complimentary and charming, but, finding Isla unresponsive, had then spoken rather disagreeably about her position in the household, warning her quite pointedly that Mrs. Bodley-Chard was in the hands of a capable maid who understood her temperament and who would not brook any interference from outside. Isla listened in silence, and, remembering her impression of Fifine, felt her pity for Mrs. Chard increase.

Having reduced the new inmate of the house to silence and--as he thought--submission, Mr. Bodley-Chard departed airily to the city to forget all about his wife. For the first time, however, since he had become a pensioner on a rich woman's bounty he was to find himself weighed in the balance and found wanting. Isla's eyes had a disconcerting clearness, and her recent experiences had made her suspicious and critical of all mankind.

She found that her duties in the house were by no means heavy.

There was a sufficient staff of servants to do the work properly, though they wanted careful handling. Isla's gift in that direction was a special one. She had that nice mixture of friendliness and hauteur which made its due impression on the women of a household which had never had a proper mistress. When they found that Miss Mackinnon knew her business, and that she intended that they should know theirs, too, they submitted with a very fair grace.

There were five servants in the house besides the French maid. Fifine was Isla's only failure, and before she had been a week in the house she was obliged to conclude that the Frenchwoman was Mr. Bodley-Chard's ally, working with him to keep his wife in a state of bodily helplessness and mental confusion.

On Sunday afternoon she walked across the Park in the cool autumn wind to tell Agnes Fraser some of her experiences. She found that good lady much perturbed by a letter which she had received from Elspeth Maclure.

"Read that, Miss Isla, and tell me what to say when I write back. It's maistly aboot you."

Isla sat down and took out Elspeth's rather badly written sheet, while Agnes critically regarded her and was obliged to admit that she looked better than when she had left her house four days before.

Elspeth wrote without embroidery to her old neighbour of her own concerns and of the things that were happening in the Glen:--

"DARRACH, LOCHEARNHEAD, 18 October.

"DEAR NANCE,--It's ages since onybody has heard from you, but I must write, for things are that queer here that you would hardly ken the Glen. I suppose you have heard about the American folk in Achree. There's naething the matter with them, and some of us wish that they were there for good and that we had no other Laird. We were to leave at Martinmas, but Donald has gotten round the Laird to let him stop another year at a higher rent. That will give us time to look about. But, as I said to Miss Isla, my man will never leave Darrach and live. He'll be found in the Loch afore the day comes, or else dee of a broken hert in the bed where he was born. Miss Isla has gone away from the Glen, but maybe you have seen her. She seemed to forget all about us lately, but the poor lassie's head must be near turned with all the trouble of Achree. They're saying in the Glen that her and the Laird had words before she left and even that he doesn't know now where she is. Some say she has gone away to foreign parts to Lady Mackinnon, and then, again, there's some say naebody kens where she is. It's a terible business anyway, and if you have seen or heard tell of her I wish you would write and let us know, for there's a heap of folk in the glens that are not easy in their minds about it. They're saying, to, that the Laird is after one of the Miss Rosmeads--the one that divorced her man in America, but that there's somebody else has a grip of him. There was a woman stopping at the Strathyre Hotel. William Thorn that is the Boots there told Donald about her the other day. And it seems that she talked a lot about the Laird and about what would happen if he sought to marry Mrs. Rodney Payne. Then, quite suddenly--I believe it was the very night before Miss Isla went away--he went to Strathyre and saw her. They went out for a walk together, and the next morning she left with the train. Sic ongauns, Nance--very different from the auld days at Achree when we wass all happy together! Write soon to your auld neibour and say what you think about all this, and mind you tell me if you've see Miss Isla. That's the chief thing. Only don't send a postcard, Nance, for David Bain reads every wan of them and the Glen hass all the news afore a body gets it themselves. Love from your auld neibour,

"ELSPETH MACLURE".

Isla laid down the closely-written sheet, and a little quiver ran across her face.

Agnes Fraser sat forward, her questioning eyes very eager and bright.

"What am I to say, then, Miss Isla?"

"Say, Agnes, that you have seen me and that I am quite well. But I forbid you to give any particulars. Do you understand?"

"I understand, of course, but I dinna see, Miss Isla, how it is possible for ye to live long like this. Some o' your folk will come seekin' ye--that's a sure thing. If Mr. Malcolm believes that ye have gane to Lady Mackinnon he will soon be hearin' frae them that you are not there. It's a dreadfu' business a'thegither, and I hate the idea of where ye are now. It doesn't sound richt at a'. Leave it the morn, Miss Isla, and come back here."

"No, no. I am very comfortable. I am well paid, and I am interested in what's going on in the house. I had no idea that there were such exciting incidents in real life. I feel really as if I were a sort of Sherlock Holmes, and I don't worry half as much as I used to do about my own affairs."

Isla spoke as she felt at the moment, but the time came when she realized that there had been more truth and foresight in Agnes Fraser's point of view than she had admitted.

After four days' close observation in the household of Mrs. Bodley-Chard she arrived at an absolute conviction as to what was actually happening. Mrs. Chard was being kept continuously under the influence of drugs that were gradually destroying her will-power and leaving her ever weaker and weaker and more utterly in the hands of her unscrupulous husband.

That he was unscrupulous Isla had not had the smallest doubt from the moment she entered the house. Also, she had satisfied herself that the French maid carried out all his instructions regarding her mistress, and, as she was in close attendance on her, while Isla was only an occasional visitor to her room, she had everything in her power.

Finding that Isla kept him at arm's length and that she had not the smallest intention of being friendly with him, Mr. Bodley-Chard abandoned all his efforts to attract her and treated her in a very off-hand manner. Without being positively rude, his manner was most offensive.

Isla, however, entrenched herself behind her natural reserve and did not mind. One day she made so bold as to put a very straight question to Mr. Chard.

"Mrs. Chard is very unwell to-day," she said quietly and politely. "She is quite unable to give her mind to any of her ordinary affairs."

"There is no occasion for her to give her mind to anything. People are paid to do the work of the house," he said pointedly.

"That is not what I mean. Her mind seems to wander. May I call in a doctor? It distresses me to see her like that."

A cold, almost baleful light came into his eyes, and his mouth, under the carefully-trimmed moustache, became very ugly.

"You are my wife's housekeeper--not her nurse."

"Pardon. I was engaged as a housekeeper-companion," said Isla quite clearly. "And I can't see her growing worse every day without being troubled about it. Hasn't she any relations or friends who could come and take her in hand, then? It does not seem right to leave her so much in the hands of a flighty French maid."

"Are you aware that your words are offensive and that they cast an imputation upon me? When I think my wife requires other attention or supervision it will be time to get it. She has the most implicit confidence in me--or had until you sought to undermine it."

Isla did not even take the trouble to deny the false charge, but merely left the room, seriously troubled about what was her duty in the matter.

A week later, she left the house one morning to do her ordinary shopping and, in the course of her outing, walked the whole length of Mount Street, looking for the house of Dr. Stephens. When she found it she hesitated a moment or two before she rang the bell. She was only encouraged to take this step by the reflection that a doctor's consulting-room is the grave of many secrets and that nothing she could say there would be used against her.

A motor-car was in waiting, and when the door of the house was opened she saw the doctor coming out to start upon his rounds.

"I am just going out, but I can see you, of course," he said cordially enough, leading the way to his consulting-room.

Isla's first look at him pleased her. He was tall and thin and clean-shaven with a clever, serious face--a man to whom it would be possible to explain the situation in a very few words.

"You don't know me, Dr. Stephens, and I hardly know how to explain my call this morning. I come from the house of Mrs. Bodley-Chard in Hans Crescent."

"Oh, indeed!" he said interestedly. "And how is Mrs. Chard?"

"She is very unwell," said Isla in a low, quick voice. "I am her housekeeper-companion. My name is Mackinnon."

"Yes?" said the doctor still interestedly. "Mrs. Bodley-Chard has had a good many, I think."

"I have been there only three weeks, and I am seriously concerned about her. It is because she told me you were once her medical attendant that I am here to-day."

"Yes. But as I have ceased attendance upon the lady I hardly know why you should have called."

"I simply had to come. Mrs. Chard has no doctor attending her at present. I understand that she has had none since you left. And it is quite time that somebody was on the spot to--to look after her. Otherwise I believe she will die."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because she is being kept almost continuously under the influence of drugs, administered by her husband and her French maid," said Isla quite clearly and unhesitatingly. "I believe myself there is nothing the matter with her except that, and if she were removed from it all she would get quite well."

Dr. Stephens took a turn across the floor, and when he came back to Isla's side his face was even graver than it had been.

"Miss Mackinnon, I don't for a moment doubt the truth of what you are saying. On the contrary, I know it to be perfectly true. But we are quite powerless."

"Oh, how can you say that! It is terrible if two responsible persons know that this wicked thing is going on and take no steps to stop it! I can't be a party to it, and I was in hopes that you would help me."

"I was kicked out of the house by that unspeakable cad, Chard, and I can't go back again. We have no possible way of getting at him, except one--to lodge a complaint with the police. Are you prepared to do that? Frightful responsibility is incurred by taking that step, of course--to say nothing of the publicity attending it."

Isla sank back.

"Oh, Dr. Stephens, I couldn't do that! But surely you, an influential medical man, knowing the facts, can do something--ought to do something----"

He shook his head.

"I'm not so well up in medical jurisprudence as I used to be," he said with a slight smile. "But I'll take expert opinion to-day. Could you possibly come and see me to-morrow?"

"I could, of course. What I am trying to do is to persuade Mrs. Chard to let you resume personal attendance on her. If she consents will you come?"

"I don't know. It is a very awkward case. Don't forget that Chard put me out of the house because I told him quite plainly--well, just what you have told me to-day."

Isla saw the difficulties of the position and, after a little more conversation with the doctor which strengthened her determination to get him back to the house, she bade him good-morning.

When she reached Hans Crescent it was almost lunch-time, and Robbins, the butler, was waiting for her with a note.

"This has come by hand from the city for you, Miss. It is from Mr. Chard."

Isla turned aside to open the letter, and when she broke the seal she saw a pink slip that looked like a cheque.

Within, there were written a few curt words, dismissing her from her position in the house and requesting that she would leave before four o'clock.

With reddening cheeks she passed up the stairs and tapped lightly at the door of Mrs. Chard's room. There was no answer, and, after repeated knocks, she tried to open the door and found it locked.

At the moment Fifine appeared at the other end of the corridor with a small, satisfied smirk on her lips.

"Mrs. Chard can't see you, Mees. She particularly said I was not to let you in. She's asleep now. She told me to say that she will write to you in the evening if you will be good enough to leave your address."

Isla turned on her heel, her quick Highland temper flashing in her eyes. She was very sorry for the poor woman, but she could not be ordered from her house a second time.

She walked to her own room and began to gather her belongings together.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CHAMPION

Malcolm Mackinnon, busy with his own concerns, had no qualms about his sister even when the weeks went by, bringing no line or sign from her. The Barras Mackinnons did not write either, but when Malcolm thought of the matter at all he concluded that she was safe with them. Obviously there could be no other explanation of the silence.

Towards the end of November, however, a somewhat disturbing note from Lady Mackinnon arrived at Creagh.

"As Isla has not chosen to answer any of our letters I am writing to ask what is the matter with her. We kept on expecting her at Wimereaux up to the last, and Uncle Tom was much disappointed that she did not come. I am writing to say that we shall be in Glasgow on Thursday night, en route for Barras, and that if you and she will come up for the night to St. Enoch's we can talk things over. If Isla likes to bring her things and go on with us to Barras we shall only be too glad."

Malcolm stood, staring stupidly at the letter, and, for the moment, he was at his wits' end. Isla had not gone to Wimereaux, their folk knew nothing of her!--where, then, was she? Had Malcolm lived in close intimacy with the folk in the Glen, as Isla had done, he would have heard by now from Elspeth Maclure that she had gone no farther than London and was there still.

Truth to tell, he had been so relieved by his sister's departure that he had not troubled his head about her or noticed the quick flight of time. Things were going well with him, and the spectre in the background was giving no unnecessary trouble. He was a great believer in luck, as many ignorant persons are, and he believed that his had turned. His chief business in life just then was the wooing of Vivien Rosmead, and he was now anticipating the day, not far distant, when he intended to ask her to be his wife.

He hoped to arrange the matter quietly when Rosmead returned to Scotland, and to have his marriage an accomplished fact as soon thereafter as possible. Then he could snap his fingers at all the phantoms of the past.

Malcolm, however, did not reckon with certain forces that are stronger than the poor planning of the human brain, and so he marched on unconcernedly to the crisis of his fate.

He received his aunt's letter one day at Lochearn when he was on his way to Glasgow to see Cattanach. At the station he met Neil Drummond, who was going up to Callander to see a man at the Dreadnought Hotel, and, being full of the news that had just come, he blurted it out to Neil, who had seemed of late disposed to be more friendly to him.

"Look here, Drummond. Has your sister ever heard from Isla since she left Glenogle?" he asked as he offered Neil his cigarette-case.

"No, she hasn't, and Kitty has wondered, of course. I suppose she's still with your uncle and aunt at Wimereaux?"

Garrion folks, in common with others, had frequently made inquiries about Isla's welfare, and Malcolm had invariably answered that she was all right. None of them had any doubt but that she had been with the Barras Mackinnons for the last two months.

"They've left the place. They're going back to Barras on Friday, but Isla isn't with them. She never has been."

"Never has been! Then, where is she?" asked Neil blankly.

"Well, old chap, to tell you the truth, I don't know. When she left she certainly said that she was going to them."

"But haven't you had any letters?"

"Not a blessed one."

Neil looked him all over with a sudden, sharp scrutiny that, to another man, would have been, to say the least of it, unpleasant.

"You say you haven't known all this time where she is?"

"I haven't known. I tell you she hasn't written to me. That's why I asked whether your sister had heard."

"And you haven't made the smallest effort to find out?"

"Why should I?" inquired Malcolm coolly. "She's of age, she knows her own mind, she had plenty of money, and she doesn't want to be harried about her private business. You don't know Isla, Neil, though you think you do, and the man who marries her will have a hard row to hoe. I can tell you that."

Drummond crushed back the desire to take Malcolm Mackinnon by the throat. He was not normal where Isla was concerned, and he took a far more serious view of the situation than there was any need to do.

"Do you mean to say that you haven't the shadow of a clue as to where she is or what she is doing? Haven't you any other friends in London to whom she could have gone?"

"None--except an old servant of Achree who lives somewhere about the Edgeware Road," said Malcolm with a sudden flash of remembrance. "Don't wear such a worried look, old chap, and don't forget that Isla is twenty-six years of age and more capable than either of us of looking after herself."

"But, hang it all, she's a woman, Malcolm, and--and your sister ought not to be adrift like that!"

"She isn't adrift," said Malcolm cheerily. "And, anyway, what can we do? If she chooses to hide herself, as she seems to be doing, who is to prevent her? She has her reasons for doing so, no doubt."

Neil Drummond was conscious of a growing indignation, of a swift return of his old rage against Malcolm, and of scorn of that careless, irresponsible being who had made life such a burden to the woman whom Neil himself loved. He withdrew with a snort into his own corner and jumped out at Callander with a very curt good-bye.

He put through his business there very quickly and returned to Lochearnhead by the earliest possible train. During the whole journey he was racking his brains as to how and where he could discover the address of the old servant of whom Malcolm had spoken. He knew Isla's ways, and he was aware that it had always been her delight when in London to look up any of her own folk who were settled there. He ran over in his memory the servants at Achree with whom he had been familiar, but he could not fix his mind on anyone in particular. Diarmid, however, who had been with the Mackinnons for nearly thirty years, would surely be able to help him. He would go to Diarmid.

His bicycle had been left at the station, because the train had offered a quicker way of getting over the heavy roads to Callander. He now took it out and rode swiftly down the hill to Lochearn and up Glenogle towards Creagh.

Neil had all the swift impetuosity of the Celt in his blood, and he did not let the grass grow under his feet.

He was fortunate, however, in obtaining the information he desired about half way up, at the farm-house of Darrach, where he came upon Elspeth Maclure taking her washing down off the lines in the front garden.

He swung himself off his machine, set it against the drystone dyke, and pushed open the little gate.

Elspeth, surprised and pleased by this little attention, hastened to ask him into the house.

He thanked her, but declined.

"I am seeking information, Mrs. Maclure. I was on my way to Creagh to see Diarmid, but perhaps you will do. Do you remember the name of an old servant of the Mackinnons who married in London and settled somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware Road?"

A curious flicker crossed Elspeth's eager face.

"You mean Agnes Fraser that was under housemaid at Achree when I was upper of three, do ye, Maister Drummond?"

"I suppose I do if the description answers," he said with a laugh. "But I don't know her name."

"She lives at 18 Cromer Street, Edgeware Road, sir," answered Elspeth. "If ye'll just come intil the hoose I'll write it doon."

"Here you are," said Neil, drawing out a notebook and a pencil. "18 Cromer Street, Edgeware Road. Thank you very much. That saves me that stiff pull to Creagh, and the roads are heavy to-day. I was glad to leave my machine at the station and take a handy train to Callander. Maclure and all the young folks well, I hope?"

"Yes, sir, thank you," said Elspeth, but the odd, eager expression did not leave her face as she followed the Laird of Garrion to the gate. "I had a letter from Mrs. Fraser not so long ago, Maister Drummond."

"You had--eh? And what was her news?"

"She said she had had Miss Mackinnon stoppin' at her hoose. That was aboot a month ago."

"Do you think she is there still?" asked Neil with apparent carelessness, though his hand as he stooped to his bicycle trembled a little.

"I'm no sure, but I think, Maister Drummond, that Agnes wass troubled apoot her. I haf been troubled mysel'. For, look you, it iss an awfu' thing for the Glen that Miss Isla should haf peen spirited away like this. It iss not the same at all. And nopody efer speakin' her naame or tryin' to get her pack--that iss the worst thing of all. If you please. Maister Drummond, askin' your pardon for my free speech----"

Drummond sprang to his machine and waved his hand in parting.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Maclure. I'll bring Miss Isla back if it can be done. But keep a quiet tongue in your head--not a word to a soul."

He rode off at break-neck speed and, to the great astonishment of his folk, announced that he had to leave Garrion that very night for London, having business there.

Drummond slept soundly in the train, for he was young and strong, and he had had a tiring and exciting day.

Arrived at Euston, he entered the hotel and made himself fit for his great quest. But after he had finished his toilet and gone through the whole menu of the table d'hote breakfast it was only half-past eight. Even an old friend may not presume to call on a lady at such an unholy hour of the morning.

London had no bright welcome for the Laird of Garrion. One of the worst fogs of a particularly foggy November lay like a thick yellow pall over everything, and through its impenetrable folds weird shapes and shadows loomed, and strange, half-stifled cries troubled the air as if there were some invisible and ghostly warfare waged in the streets.

"How long do you suppose it will take me to get to the Edgeware Road in this--eh?" he asked the big porter in the hall.

"Ten minutes by the underground, sir," he answered. "After that, I don't know!"

Neil took the risks. About half-past ten o'clock he emerged from the underground fastness of the Edgeware Road Station and began to grope his way about for his ultimate destination. But it was a sorry business. He seemed to be wandering round in a circle, and by noon he did not know which end of the Road he was at.

Then a sudden miracle, often seen in the case of a London fog, was wrought by some invisible force in the upper air. The thick veil was drawn back as if by unseen hands, a few feeble rays of wintry sunshine filtered through the gloom, and London became free and visible once more.

Neil then found that he had wandered into Maida Vale, where he was totally stranded. He hailed a passing hansom and, giving the address, sat back comfortably with his cigarette, all unconscious, until he took a peep into the little mirror at the side of the cab, that his face was exceedingly grimy and that there were various smudges on his collar.

Neil was not vain, but a man likes to look his best when he goes to see the girl he loves. He did what he could to remedy the defects, and was fairly satisfied with the results when the cab set him down at his destination.

The jingling cab bells reached Agnes Fraser's ears in the dining-room, where, with a polishing cloth, she was trying to remove the traces of the fog from her furniture.

She herself opened the door and had no doubt when she saw a tall young man alighting from the hansom that he was only some fresh seeker after "accommodation," which is the word used in her business. She had of course, seen the Laird of Garrion when he was a boy but she did not recognize him now.

He paid the man and came smilingly to the door.

"Mrs. Fraser? You don't know me, I can see, though you must have seen me sometimes at Achree--Drummond of Garrion."

Agnes's face flushed warmly.

"Oh, sir, I beg your pardon. I micht hae kent; but there--of course ye are cheenged. Will you come inside, sir? It's a prood woman I am to bid ye to my hoose."

He entered the house, and, with his hat in his hand, put the one straight question on his lips.

"Is Miss Mackinnon here?"

A great light broke over Agnes Fraser's mind. She nodded silently, pointing to the dining-room, and followed him in.

"This is God-sent, Mr. Drummond. I wad hae written to the Glen the day if ye hadna come."

"But what is wrong? I hope Miss Mackinnon is not ill?" he said with eager apprehension.

"Not ill in her body, though she has got very thin. But will you not sit down, and I will tell you? She is not in the hoose at this very meenit, though I think I can tell ye whaur to find her."

Neil took the chair and waited for all that he might hear.

"She has been in this hoose, sir--let me see--ten weeks a'thegither, coontin' frae the time she cam' first. Three weeks of that time she was at that queer hoose in Hans Crescent."

"What queer house?"

Agnes then grasped the fact that nobody in Glenogle or Balquhidder knew aught of Isla's movements since she had come to London, and she proceeded in her own terse and graphic way to describe them.

"Weel, ye see, she cam' here--for why, I dinna ken. Them that's left in the Glen are the wans that should ken that bit of it. But she cam', not intendin' at a' to go to foreign places to Lady Mackinnon, but jist to live by hersel' and get her ain livin'."

Neil started in his chair. The thing was unthinkable--intolerable. It could not be Isla of whom the woman was talking, yet her broad, comely face was so full of honest concern and her voice rang so true that he could not doubt a word.

"I was wae for her, for I ken London through and through, and what a hole it is--bar for them that hae money and heaps o' folk. In the Glen, see, ye can live withoot onybody and no be that ill aff, but London is--is fair hell unless ye hae folk; I'm sayin' that, that kens. I telt her weel, though I was a prood woman to hae her in my hoose, and wad hae dune ony mortal thing for her. But it was not the hoose for her that had been brocht up in the Castle o' Achree wi' servants at her ca'. Her idea was to lodge wi' me and work in the day-time, but she could get naething like that to do."

Agnes paused, breathless, and dashed away something from her eye.

"When I tell ye ye'll maybe lauch, and maybe ye'll greet. It's what I felt mair like. The first place she gaed to was to a woman that wantit somebody to tak' oot her pet dogs for an airin' in the Park. Yes, she went after that--Miss Mackinnon of Achree!--she did! And that'll show ye far better than I can tell ye what London is for the woman-body that has neither money nor folk."

Drummond was silent, but the veins began to rise on his ruddy forehead, and his kind eyes flashed fire.

"She didna think she wad tak' that at seevin-an'-saxpence a week," pursued Agnes with merciless candour, "and syne she gaed to the Hans Crescent place to be a kind o' companion-hoosekeeper to a leddy. O' a' the traps there is set in London for a woman-body--that's the warst, for, look ye, Maister Drummond, a servant-lass kens what she is and what she has to dae, but when you're that," she said, with a scornful snap of her fingers, "you're neither fish nor flesh nor guid red herrin'. But gang she would. It seems that Mrs. Bodley-Chard--sic a name to begin wi'--but they're a' daft wi' their double-barrelled names here!--was an auld wife married to a young man that had been her first man's clerk. It was her money he was efter, and Miss Isla thocht he was tryin' to get rid o' her wi' some pooshonous drug. Ye ken Miss Isla. Nae joukery-pawkery can live near whaur she is, and she began to fecht the scoondrel quietly-like, daein' what she could for the puir woman. But at the end o' three weeks she was dismissed at a moment's notice, her money flung at her--like. She didna tak' that, and she cam' back here, whaur she's been ever since. And she's got naething to dae sin syne, and her money's near dune, and--and she's--weel, if ye see her, ye'll ken what wey I was gaun to write to the Glen this very day."

Drummond rose up from his chair, and he was like a man ready to fight the whole of London for Isla's sake.

"But what did she mean by it?" he said a little hoarsely. "There was no need----"

"She seemed to think there was. Forby, she was not pu'in' in the same boat wi' Maister Malcolm--the Laird, I mean--and she has never written to him or heard frae him since she cam'. That I do ken."

"Well, and where is she? I must see her and, if possible, take her back with me to the Glen."

"When the fog lifted she gaed oot for a walk in the Park. She hasna been gane twenty minutes or so. Ye can easy follow her. Do ye ken London, sir?"

"Not this part of it, I am afraid."

"But ye canna go wrang. Gang oot into the Edgeware Road, and turn to your left, and gang on till ye come to the Marble Arch. Syne you're in the Park. She's very fond o' walkin' roond by the Serpentine. Ony bobby will tell ye which wey to tak' when you're inside the gates."

Drummond departed without further parley, and Agnes, with a big sigh of relief, returned to her polishing.

She had given the entire story away without ever having paused to inquire whether the Laird of Garrion had the right to hear it. He had certainly assumed some such right, and, anyhow, the time had come when something had to be done.

The desperate look in Isla's eyes that morning had haunted and terrified her. Each week Isla had insisted on scrupulously paying the full amount for "The Picture Gallery" and for such food as she ate in the house, and now her little store was well-nigh exhausted.

It was a very searching and cruel experience for Isla, the memory of which never afterwards wholly faded from her remembrance, though she always said she could never regret the period of "Sturm und Drang" which had given her such insight into the lives of thousands of women battling with adverse circumstances from the cradle to the grave.

Garrion's temper worked itself into fever-heat as his great, swinging stride took him through the swirl of the traffic at the Marble Arch and into the cool, wide spaces of the Park. Against Malcolm Mackinnon his anger burned with an unholy fire. He would never forgive him for this--for his callous indifference to his sister's fate, for his absolute failure to make the smallest inquiry on her behalf. In future she should be removed from her brother's jurisdiction altogether, and he would have to answer to him.

Such was Neil's mighty resolve as he strode along, his restless eyes, sweeping from side to side in search of the dear, slim figure of the woman he loved. There was very little alloy of self in his thoughts that winter morning as he swept round by the windy Serpentine in search of Isla. It was all of her he thought with a vast, encompassing tenderness which equalled Rosmead's, and was less cautious and deliberate in its operations.

He did not doubt in the least that he would find her, but he had to walk a little farther than he expected. At the end of the beautiful sheet of water there is a winding path, and, passing there, he looked up and saw, sitting on one of the seats, a solitary figure which he thought looked like Isla. Only at the distance he could not be quite certain. It did not take him long to cover it. Dashing past the smart nursemaids and the bonnie bairns, whose sweet freshness even London fogs could not dim, he came presently to her side. And Isla, sitting with her head slightly turned away, was not aware of his presence till the gravel crunched under his impetuous foot and her name was spoken in the quick accents of apprehensive love.

She rose up a little wildly, stretched out her hands, essayed to speak, then went white all over, and collapsed, a little heap of unconscious humanity, on the seat.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ARCH-PLOTTERS

Lady Betty Neil, the aunt of the Drummonds, who lived with them at Garrion, was a Highland lady of the old school. She loved the Gaelic and deplored its increasing disuse in the Glen, she had all the lore of the North country at her finger-ends, and was, moreover, gifted with the second-sight.

Certainly, when she received a peremptory telegram from her nephew on the second day after his departure for London, she evinced neither perturbation nor surprise.

"You go to London, Aunt Betty!" cried Kitty, open-mouthed. "What does he mean? How dare he? Let me see the telegram."

Lady Betty, leaning on her ebony stick with her left hand, produced from her reticule the crumpled piece of pink paper bearing the summons.

"I need you in London. Will meet you to-morrow night. Euston, half-past six."

Kitty looked from the telegram to her aunt's face and back again in sheer amaze. Never had Lady Betty looked more like "an ancestor," which was Sadie Rosmead's name for her.

She was a picturesque old lady of great height and commanding mien, her hair and eyes still as black as sloes, her face beautiful still, in spite of its wrinkles--the face that had once been the toast of a county. She was the Drummonds' nearest relative, their mother's sister, in fact, and, though immensely wealthy, she had no fixed habitation of her own, and she had agreed to live at Garrion, at any rate until Neil brought home a wife.

That he had found one now she did not doubt, and she hoped that he had. Isla Mackinnon was a woman after her own heart. Neil had confided to her the nature of the business that had taken him to London, but he had enjoined silence.

"Kitty can't hold her tongue, as you know, Aunt Betty. Besides, she's too thick at Achree at present, and I don't want them to get wind of it. This is a business that has to be done on the quiet."

"Aunt Betty, what took Neil to London?" quoth Kitty with a severe expression on her piquant face. "You and he are keeping me in the dark. It isn't fair."

"Neil has his reasons, my dear, and they are good ones, depend on it."

"But you can't go to London by yourself, auntie! The thing's outrageous! It can't be contemplated for a moment. I must go with you to take care of you."

"No, I'll take Lisbeth, and I must go and arrange matters with her now."

Lady Betty was now seventy-four, but she was as straight and supple as a young birch tree. She carried a stick--not because she needed it, but because it was her whim to do so and because it had been given to her by an old sweetheart for a wager. She had never parted with it. It was her faithful companion by day, and at night it stood in a handy corner by her bed. Lady Betty had never married. But had any married wife a life so full of romance? This is not Lady Betty's story, however.

She sniffed a love story afar off and rose to it with the keen scent of a war-horse for the fray. There she would be in her element--keen, shrewd, sympathetic, and full of common-sense. Neil had made no mistake in sending that telegram. He knew the hour had come, and the woman.

Aunt Betty was as gay as a young girl over her preparations, which were so elaborate that Kitty felt called upon to remonstrate.

"Mind your own business, my dear. I know mine. A lassie like you can afford to rise and run. A woman like me must uphold the dignity of her age and position. Neil has not said what he wants me for. I must be prepared for any emergency."

Kitty was speechless, consumed with curiosity and inordinately jealous. She travelled to Stirling, however, to put her aunt on the London train, and on the way back drove to Achree to acquaint the inmates with the astounding news of Lady Betty's departure for London, that gave her one hour's rare enjoyment and partly consoled her for being left behind.

Lady Betty arrived at Euston as fresh and gay as when she had left Garrion in the raw of the winter morning, driving down Balquhidder in a blast of half-frozen rain.

And Neil was on the platform to greet her, overjoyed at sight of her clever old face.

"You are a brick, Aunt Betty. But I knew you would come. How did you get rid of Kitty?"

"Not easily, my lad. But I did manage it. Lisbeth is here. Where are we going, and where can she ride? We want to talk together in the cab, you and I."

"I have a brougham waiting. It's quite fair, and Lisbeth can go on the box. We are going to Brown's Hotel."

Lady Betty nodded an approval. She was known at Brown's. In the old days, when she had been a figure in London society, she had often spent a season there.

"It's Isla Mackinnon, of course. Where is she?"

"She's with an old servant of Achree living in a place off the Edgeware Road, from which you will fetch her to-morrow," said Neil quietly.

"And do what with her?"

"That's for you to say."

"Tell me about her.--everything you can or will. I must know how I stand, and where. It's not for nothing that an old woman of seventy-four rises and runs at a young man's bidding."

Neil nodded comprehendingly, and in his quickest and most graphic way he put her in possession of the facts.

"It's an unco story," she said, folding her slender hands with an unusual grip on the ebony stick. "It's not a story that Donald Mackinnon would have liked to bear in connexion with his one ewe lamb. I'm glad he's in Balquhidder," she said brusquely. "But the spunk of the lassie! There's grit there Neil Drummond! She'll fight--ay, and starve, but nobody shall know of it. That's the true spirit that has made Scotland great! It's in the women yet, Neil, but it's scarce, very scarce among the men."

Neil had no time for platitudes. His head was a whirl of plans.

"Does Isla know I'm coming?" asked the old lady then.

"Yes. She expects you to-morrow."

"Has she left herself in your hands, then, lad?" asked Lady Betty with a curious straight glance under which Neil reddened.

"So far. She's run down, body and spirit, Aunt Betty. I want you to realize that before you see her. She--she has lost grip. My God, to see Isla Mackinnon like that! It makes me itch to get with my two hands at Mackinnon's throat!"

"Leave him out of the count, Neil. His Maker will deal with him, I dinna doubt," said the old lady quietly. "Then, she's to be turned over to me to do with what I think fit."

"Yes, and what she will agree to."

"But this is a big thing, Neil. Does it mean that one day she will come to Garrion?"

"Please God, it does mean that. But only a brute would think of himself at such a time. She must first be made well in body and spirit, Auntie Betty. I'll come in later."

"But if she's let you do all this she must like you, Neil. Isla Mackinnon is not the woman to take favours of this kind from frem folk."

"Wait till you see her," he pleaded, and she said no more.

She ate an astonishingly big dinner, insisting on going down to the restaurant, dressed in an elegant gown of rich black satin, with priceless lace on the bodice and a diamond star glistening among its filmy folds. Many looked in the direction of the handsome young man and the still handsomer old lady and wondered who they were.

Aunt Betty slept like a tired child the whole night long and rose at eight o'clock when Lisbeth brought her morning tea, every faculty alert and braced for the day's work.

At half-past ten the brougham came again, and Neil drove with her to the end of the Edgeware Road, where he got down, saying that he would meet her at lunch at Brown's, whither she was to bring Isla if she could persuade her to come.

Agnes Fraser herself joyfully opened the door to Lady Betty Neil. She was graciously recognized, and her welfare was asked for before Isla's name was even mentioned.

"Miss Isla is in her own room, my lady. Will you come up? A very dark mornin', isn't it? I hope you are not very tired wi' your journey."

Lady Betty suitably replied, and, with the aid of the ebony stick, she climbed to "The Pictur Gallery," where Isla was sitting over the fire, very white and spent, but with a more restful look on her face than it had worn for many a day.

She sprang up at the opening of the door.

"Lady Betty, Lady Betty! You came all this way to see me!" she cried breathlessly, holding out both her hands.

"Wheesht, my dear--that's nothing. I loved your father well. I just missed being your mother: and if I had been there would have been none of this gallivanting. Where can I sit?"

Isla drew in the most comfortable chair she could find, and the old lady sat down and assumed her most characteristic attitude, in which the ebony stick played a prominent part.

"We're not going to talk about what's past, Isla, nor even about what's to come. Our concern is with the present moment. Now I have plumed my feathers and flown from Balquhidder, I've no mind to go back until the sun begins to shine again. Will you go with me to-morrow to the south of France? I've not been there for eleven years. We'll go to Monty, my dear, and have a fling with the bravest of them. It stands to reason that I can't go alone. Will ye go?"

Isla sat very still, and from the expression of her face her thoughts could not have been gathered. Perhaps the old lady partly guessed them. The gift of second-sight brings in its train a sort of sixth sense that enables its possessor to be sure about things that other people only wonder about.

"But I have no money, Lady Betty, and it is Kitty that you ought to take."

"Kitty can come by and by. Besides, she has been so many times there that she is not caring about going any more. As for the money, I have plenty, and soon I shall not need it. We don't take it with us when we lie down in Balquhidder, my dear. And to spend a little here and there while we have it--why, that's a big pleasure, and it is one that you ought not to deny an auld wife."

It was delicately done. Isla raised her swimming eyes and capitulated in a moment. The prospect allured her beyond any power of hers to tell, and no feeling of obligation to Lady Betty troubled her. One fine nature responds to another. It was what Isla herself would have done in similar circumstances--what, indeed, she had often done on a small scale in the glens when she had the chance. The kinship of good deeds was between them, and there is none closer.

An immense satisfaction shone in the old lady's eyes at this unexpectedly easy capture of the fort. They positively glowed with her inward triumph, and, without so much as alluding to the odd circumstances that had brought them together, she proceeded to expatiate on what they would do when they got away to the sunshine. This was the crowning touch of the wisdom that comes from the second-sight.

Isla was sick to death of herself and of the sordid problems of her life. What she wanted was to get away from everything that would remind her of them, and, above all, from the people that would talk about them.

"I have no smart clothes for the Riviera, Lady Betty. But take me as your maid."

"Lisbeth is here," was the grim answer. "I can get a maid for the hiring, but companions and friends have to be won. I suppose you have things to cover you, and, if I mind rightly, the shops at Nice were not that bad, though they put it on for the English. But you and me will get the better of them. Come then, my dear, and we'll go back to Brown's to lunch and talk about all our plans."

Then an odd shyness seemed to come over the girl.

"Neil will be there, Lady Betty?"

"Yes, I suppose that he will."

"Then, will you excuse me? I--I haven't got over things yet. Did he tell you how he found me?"

"In a general way he did, but Neil has not his sister's gift of the gab. You have to fill in with him. Of this you may be sure, Isla--that Neil Drummond will not tell to me, or to anybody a thing that would vex or humble you. He has set you up there!" she added with a slight upward inflection of her eyebrows as well as of her voice. "So come, and remember that you and I are not women with a past, but only with a future."

Cackling at her own joke, she carried off Isla, who met Neil in the luncheon-room of the restaurant in a way which commanded Lady Betty's highest admiration. Isla Mackinnon was no fool. She was neither hysterical nor emotional. Lady Betty knew that in what the girl had done her reason had fully justified her, though her method perhaps had been at fault. She guessed that in the sunny days to come she would hear the full story, or at least enough of it to enable her to fill in all the gaps.

Neil's manner was also admirable, and they appeared just like a happy little family party, of which the old lady was the life and soul.

That evening after dinner, over the fire in Lady Betty's sitting-room, she indicated to her nephew his course of action.

"It will not be a good thing for you to come with us just now, Neil. We can make the journey by ourselves and get settled. Then I'll write."

Disappointment immediately wrote itself large upon his face. He had already wired to Garrion for another trunk to be sent and he had looked forward to being the director of the little travelling party to the south.

"I am understanding Isla better than you, my dear, and just at the present moment the sight of you humiliates her just a wee bit. She canna forget how you found her and the weakness she thought she betrayed. She has to get over that, and she will do it all the quicker if you are not on the spot."

"But, hang it all, Aunt Betty, to go back to Garrion--and Christmas without you, too! I won't do it!"

"I didn't lay down the law as to times and seasons. What is at the back of my mind is that you will bring Kitty to Nice, or to Monte Carlo, or to wherever we have settled ourselves, and spend Christmas with us. Then folk will not have any talk about us, because I, of course, can do as I like and nobody dare say a word."

Neil's face brightened as he consulted his pocket-diary.

"This is the fifth, so we shall come inside of three weeks."

"You will come when I bid ye--not a moment sooner or later," she said severely. "Don't forget how you hauled the old wife from the Garrion fastnesses to the gay world again. Now she must have her revenge."

When Neil did not answer she leaned forward on the ebony stick, and her eyes grew soft and luminous.

"Listen, lad. Ye may trust your Aunt Betty. She is not without knowledge of a woman's heart. If Isla is to be won it will take time and some skill. Her heart is asleep, but if I can waken it it shall be done. Do you think I am to be idle in these three weeks? I think ye may safely leave her in my hands. I will be true to your cause, for I would dearly like to see her in the house of Garrion for all our sakes as well as for her own."

It was Neil's turn to capitulate, which he did with all the grace he could muster.

Next day at two o'clock of the afternoon he saw his aunt and Isla off by the boat-train at Charing Cross, and thereafter he got ready for his own return at night to Scotland. There was nothing to keep him in London now, and he had left certain loose ends of his affairs at home which would be none the worse of his handling.

At the station Isla had broken down, trying to thank him with a faint, wavering smile on her pathetic lips.

"Don't, Isla, for God's sake, don't! It's down on my knees I'd go to serve you, and besides, we made the pact--didn't we?--that day long ago when we went to Glasgow together and lunched at St. Enoch's. I've lived on the memory of that day all these months. Don't grudge me what I've been able to do now. Besides, it's nothing but what Highland folk are doing for one another every day."

Lady Betty, observing the emotional moment, frowned upon him warningly from the background, and he tried to restrain himself. When the train fairly moved out Isla leaned out of the window to wave to him, and when she drew back to her seat her eyes were still wet.

"I've a job with that laddie, Isla. He's very thrawn. I'm often thinking I'll wash my hands of him and Kate. What with his dour temper and her tongue, my life is not as peaceful as a woman of my years has the right to expect."

"Neil--a dour temper, Lady Betty!" cried Isla spiritedly. "This is the first I have heard of it, and I don't believe it now!"

"It's there, my dear. And forby, in some things he hasna the sense of a paitrick on the moor. I'm tired of them both, I tell ye, and glad to get away."

Oh, the wily old plotter! Isla would have argued the point with her and was only restrained from doing so by her sense of decency. But this was the line of diplomacy Lady Betty started on--belittling Neil up to a certain point and voicing her relief at being rid of his company until Isla waxed furious and championed him both by spoken word and in her secret thoughts all the way south.

Lady Betty, a real diplomatist in her way, took care, however, not to overact her part. She would throw in at intervals a judicious word which had the odd effect in casting a full glare of sunshine on all that was best of Neil and so giving unexpected glimpses of his fine young manhood. Then, after a time, she left the subject in order that her words might filter down to the bed-rock of Isla's heart.

Very grey and dour seemed Balquhidder and the Garrion hills when Drummond drove up in the snell winter morning, meeting a bitter wind that seemed to skin his face.

"All right at home, Hamish?" he asked the groom, and, being answered in the affirmative, he spoke no further word until they turned in at the Garrion gate.

"Miss Kitty is at Achree, sir. They came and fetched her away the day you left," observed Hamish stolidly.

"Why didn't you tell me that at the station?" inquired Neil rather hotly, to which question the man answered never a word.

"I took the telegram over last nicht, sir, and she will come back to-day," he said after a moment in the same stolid fashion, wondering what had happened in London to shorten his master's usually placid temper.

Kitty arrived in the Achree motor, alone, about luncheon-time.

"I want to hear all about Isla, Neil," she cried. "I thought I should find her here. What have you done with her and Aunt Betty?"

"They have gone to the South of France."

"Oh!" said Kitty, and her piquant face fell. "I don't call that fair of Aunt Betty. She might have taken me."

"If you're a good girl and don't talk too much between now and Christmas," said Neil provokingly, "I'll take you myself to be there in time for Christmas."

Kitty danced in ecstasy.

"Oh, I shall be glad. It's going to be a frightfully dismal Christmas here this year, and nobody is going to do any entertaining. The Rosmeads are all down in the mouth because their brother can't get away for Christmas, and now it may be Easter, or even later, before they see him. Bridge-building seems to be a very unsatisfactory business, though you make so much money at it. Peter Rosmead has to work like a navvy. He goes down into caissons--and things in diver's clothes to the bottom of the river. That's where the difficulty is. Things are always happening--silting, and queer things like that. Then the work has to be done all over again. He seems annoyed about it, but he'll keep on at it. He hasn't got that square jaw for nothing," cried Kitty breathlessly. "Well, tell me all about Isla Mackinnon. What has she been doing all this time?"

"Nothing particular. There isn't any romance or tragedy--or anything. She was simply living with an old servant of Achree and getting very sick of it. She would have come home soon, anyway."

"Did she seem glad to see you?"

"Isla doesn't say much at any time. But, yes--I think she was glad. Have you seen anything of Mackinnon at Achree, Kitty?"

"Why, yes. I've seen him every day. He spends the most of his time there, and I think it's going to be a match between him and Vivien."

The colour rose a little in Drummond's cheeks.

"I should have thought that she would have had enough of matrimony after her experience," he observed drily.

"I should have thought so, too, Neil. And at first I was angry at Malcolm, thinking he was only after her money. But now anybody can see that he cares. I wonder how long it will be before we hear the news, and what Isla will say."

Drummond had got fresh food for reflection. Knowing what he did of Malcolm Mackinnon, he wondered just how much or how little the Rosmeads guessed. It was a certain fact that had they known the whole truth about Malcolm Mackinnon he never would have been permitted so much intimacy at Achree.

But the thought uppermost in Neil's mind was an unholy joy that caissons, and silt, and other queer things, as Kitty put it, were keeping Peter Rosmead safely out of the way at the bottom of the Delaware River. He would not have minded much though he had never come up again.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE LURE OF VIVIEN

Six weeks later, on a snowy January day, Neil Drummond rode one of his big roans to the Lodge of Creagh, where he had a luncheon appointment with Malcolm Mackinnon. It was one o'clock when he breasted the last bit of rising ground and beheld in front of him the little house standing sheer on the edge of the Moor of Silence, its bleak outline silhouetted against the clear grey of the sky.

The smell of Margaret Maclaren's baked meats was in his nostrils as he turned in at the gate, whetting the appetite he had gained in his long ride from Garrion.

Neil never looked better than when astride a horse, and he was the best judge of horse-flesh in all the Glen. In fact, that was his one extravagance. He was looking particularly well that day. There was an air of buoyancy about him which would not be repressed. He had whistled and sung all the way from Balquhidder and had given Pride of Garrion her head in a way which that damsel particularly liked and in which she had seldom before been indulged. Her sleek sides were wet with foam as she ran quivering to the door, tossing her pretty head, the breath coming fast in her delicate nostrils, life brimming over in every pore and muscle.

Malcolm, who had been watching, opened the door immediately, bade him good day, and in a word expressed his pleasure at sight of him.

They walked together to the stable, where Neil himself rubbed down his horse, saw that she had a modest drink, covered her up, and then turned, ready to accompany his host back to the house.

"Had a good time abroad--eh?" asked Malcolm with a somewhat covert glance at Neil as they walked.

Neil threw his head up with a joyous air.

"Ripping. It's a bit thick coming back to the grey silence of the glens. It's a white silence with us. We've heavy drifts from Balquhidder up. You're pretty free here."

"It's coming, though," said Malcolm, with an upward glance at the snell skies. "Come inside. The house is small, but it's easily warmed. That's one comfort."

When Neil had washed his hands and brushed his clothes they passed into the little snuggery, where Malcolm sat and smoked of an evening. He had made some little alteration in the arrangement of the house, and the room which the General had used as his library and sitting-room was now converted into a dining-room, which it had originally been. It was a man's house now, the few tokens of Isla's presence having long since disappeared.

Whether Malcolm was able to keep the peace between his two elderly and contentious servants nobody knew. Truth to tell, he never bothered his head about them, and many a storm rose and raged in the kitchen and was followed by many a dead and ominous calm, but of these he seemed to be totally unaware. He had none of those finer shades of feeling which had rendered Isla immediately conscious of any rift in the domestic lute.

Drummond stretched himself in the lounge-chair before the blazing peat with a sigh of content. He was in the mood to be at peace with the whole world and to give every man more than his due. It occurred to him as he looked at Malcolm, on whose face the full light from the window fell where he sat, that he had improved in looks of late. The coarseness had disappeared from his features, and there was an expression of refinement and delicacy which had been at one time wholly absent.

It was such an improvement that Drummond decided that Mackinnon's looks had been underrated. The keen, hard, simple life, in conjunction with the pursuit of a certain lofty ideal, had wrought its saving grace in Malcolm Mackinnon, as it will in any man who gives it fair play.

"Surely you didn't stop away as long as you intended," said Malcolm as he lit up his pipe, while waiting for Diarmid's summons to eat.

"I was there three weeks--long enough to idle about, though I could have stopped three years," said Drummond significantly.

"Your sister didn't come home with you?"

"No. They haven't any plans just yet. Aunt Betty talks about staying over Easter, and if they stop as long of course I'll go back."

"Nice, is it, or Monte Carlo?"

"Their headquarters are at Nice. My aunt has taken a villa. The old lady is going strong, and she is looking younger every day. What a warrior she is! She could give points to most of the girls one sees. She knows how to enjoy life at seventy-five. She had her birthday when I was there, and she had a dinner party of twelve. She has unearthed all sorts of old friends on the Riviera, and more are turning up every day. The latest is a Russian princess, whose mother was a Scotswoman somewhere away back in the dark ages. They're all having the time of their lives."

Neil was making talk, and they both knew it. It was not to rehearse these trivial items that he had come up that day to the Moor of Creagh.

Just then Diarmid made timely diversion by announcing that luncheon was served. His manner was irreproachable and dignified, and it could not have been excelled in the most distinguished establishment.

It was a great day for Diarmid, and he waited behind his young master's chair with a secret pride, for the Laird of Garrion was a guest worthy of honour.

The luncheon, though simple, was excellent, and they both enjoyed it to the full. A modest bottle of claret with the cheese just unloosed their tongues, and when Diarmid had left them Neil looked across the table very earnestly at Mackinnon's face.

"I don't suppose it will come as a very great surprise to you, Malcolm."

"What?" asked Malcolm with a start.

"About Isla."

"What about her? You saw her, of course. I didn't like to harry you with questions, but I suppose she's all right with Lady Betty. She has never written. I have managed, somehow, to commit the unpardonable sin where Isla is concerned. I'm sorry, but there isn't anything I can do now but wait her pleasure. You see it was she who cut the knot, so to speak."

Neil nodded as he crumbled the biscuit on his plate.

"I don't know whether you know, Malcolm, that I have always wanted Isla. I've asked her to marry me on the average about twice a year for the last three or four years. Last year, I believe, I asked her six times."

"Such persistence deserves its reward, and I hope you've got it, old chap," said Malcolm, but his tone lacked warmth.

He could not understand the man who wanted Isla. To him she seemed lacking in most, if not all, of the qualities which make a woman desirable.

"She has said 'Yes' at last, Malcolm, and that's why I am here to-day," said Neil.

And his hand trembled ever so slightly as it rested on the sheer white of the tablecloth.

"Well, and what's going to happen next?" said Malcolm with a curious dry note in his voice. "I'm glad, of course. It--it's a mighty relief to me to hear that anything is likely to anchor Isla or settle her. Though nobody may have given me credit for it, Neil, I've had many a bad hour--ay, and day--about her up here."

"I suppose you have," said Neil. "But, all the same, I can't help saying that I don't think you ought to have left her as long as you did--in London, I mean. That's all past, however, and there isn't any use of going back on it now. It's the future, thank God, that concerns us. I hope ours is going to be very bright."

"She has agreed to marry you, then? Is it likely to be soon?"

"What I should like, and what I'm hoping for, is that it may take place at Nice. I've had to leave the details to Aunt Betty, and they're safe with her. She's the most ripping General on earth. I owe this happiness to her, I don't doubt. There's a Scotch church there, and we could go south a bit for the honeymoon and get back to Garrion for the summer."

"It sounds all right, and in that way you would escape all the fuss and talk of the glens," said Malcolm musingly.

"I wanted to see you, Malcolm, because you're the head of the house, and I must lay the position before you."

"Oh, but there isn't any need, Neil,--between you and me, I mean. I haven't the right. Isla has always managed her own affairs, and she wouldn't like my interference now, I'm sure. Of course, anything I can do I should like to do if I'm permitted. I'd go out to Nice to give her away if she asked me."

"We'll come to that later. I want to tell you that after I'm married we'll have Garrion to ourselves. My aunt will get a place for herself somewhere and take away Kitty. I'm not a very rich man, and you know what Highland estates are in these times. But--again it's Aunt Betty to the rescue. She says she'll give us ten thousand pounds as a wedding gift and that there will be more to come later on. So you see you needn't have any anxiety about Isla's financial position."

"I couldn't have any in any case if she was in your hands," said Malcolm with difficulty. "Ten thousand pounds and Garrion clear! By Gad, Neil, you're a lucky beggar! Try to put yourself in my place for a moment and see whether you wouldn't have some crumbs of pity for a poor devil who can't make ends meet and who is just as anxious to have a home as you can possibly be."

A something swept over Malcolm's face--a spasm of infinite yearning which oddly moved Neil Drummond. Happiness brings out all that is best in a man. He forgot all his doubts of Malcolm Mackinnon, all his secret and open blame of him, and he was able even to bury his anger against him for his treatment of Isla as he stretched his hand across the table to grasp Malcolm's.

"Never mind, old chap. The luck will turn. It's bound to sooner or later, you know. No man goes through the hards from first to last."

Malcolm shook his head.

"I suppose most men get the luck they deserve," he said a little heavily.

Later, these words recurred with poignancy to Drummond's mind.

They smoked another pipe of peace together in the den afterwards, and about half-past three Drummond took his horse once more and rode through the fine powder of the newly-fallen snow towards the home that was now illumined by so many stars of promise.

A strange restlessness was upon Malcolm Mackinnon when he was left alone, and, after a little deliberation, he took to his horse--the poor common cob that had so often filled Drummond with compassion for the man who had to mount it--and rode slowly down Glenogle.

Though not bred in any of the glens, the cob had learned the way to Achree and needed no guiding when he came to the gate. Achree, with the delicate powder of the snow lying upon it and lightly touching the exquisite tracery of the trees, was a dream-place that looked the fit cradle for a thousand lovely hopes.

Malcolm took his horse to the stables, and when he presented himself at the door asked for Mrs. Rodney Payne.

"She has gone to the village, to the post, sir," the man answered.

This information caused Malcolm to turn about and walk away without another word. What he had to say were perhaps better said in the open, where none could hear and where there would be room to breathe and to think. He had a die to cast that day which would make or mar the rest of his life.

It was below the Darrach Brig he met Vivien walking alone with step a little fleet, the snow sprinkled over her long coat and lightly powdering her beautiful hair. She was pleased to see him, but her colour did not rise, nor were there about her any of the signs the impatient lover can interpret to his own joy.

That was the lure of Vivien. She was so still, like the waters of Loch Earn on the quiet autumn days or in the hush of the early morning when the dawn was waking upon its breast.

"It is not a day for you to be out in. We are going to have a great storm. At Creagh, Diarmid predicts the drift of the year. You must be more careful of yourself."

"Oh, but I love it!" she cried, her eyes lighting up. "There is something ethereal in it all. I should like to walk on and on in it to the limit of the world. Have you been at the house, and is there nobody at home?"

"I asked only for you," he made answer, greatly daring.

But still the clear paleness of her face had no touch of flame upon it.

"I had Drummond to lunch. Perhaps you met him? He went down the Glen in front of me. I didn't ride with him, because I couldn't pit my sorry old hack against his fine bit of horse-flesh."

"He does have lovely horses, and he loves them--and don't they know it!" said Vivien musingly. "Even a horse thrives best in an atmosphere of appreciation and of kindly care."

"And that's a true word, Mrs. Payne. May I tell you about Drummond and what was his business with me to-day? It was a bit of family business, but I hope you will do me the honour to be interested in it."

"Surely, if you care to tell me I shall be interested," she answered without a moment's hesitation.

"You know, of course, that he has just come back from Nice?"

"I knew he had gone anyhow, because Sadie has had budgets from Kitty."

"And you know, too, that my sister is there with Lady Betty Neil?"

"Yes," she answered quietly, "I knew that, too."

"She is going to marry Drummond," said Malcolm then, not looking at her.

It did not occur to him that she could have any acute personal interest in the news. As for Rosmead, in his absence he had in more senses than one dropped out of the count.

"She is going to marry Neil Drummond!" said Vivien after a while, and her voice was a little faint as if the news staggered her. "How very extraordinary and unexpected!"

"Why do you say that?" he asked anxiously.

"Well, because, somehow, one never expected to hear that in this world. Did you?"

"I wasn't surprised. He has been in love with her since they were children. He told me he had asked her six times last year."

"Oh!" said Vivien with a little gasp. "Then one can only hope that they will be very happy," she added, as if recovering herself by an effort of the will.

But her reception of the news was all very half-hearted, and Malcolm was deeply disappointed.

"I thought you would be pleased."

"I am, if you are. I suppose you would like Mr. Drummond for a brother-in-law."

"Drummond is a very good sort. But what chiefly pleases me is that Isla will have a proper home at Garrion and the position she ought to have. It's a fine old place, and Drummond will be a rich man one day when Lady Betty Neil is done with her money. She is to give them ten thousand pounds as a wedding present."

"'The Ancestor' has come up to expectation," said Vivien with a little smile. "Have you heard from your sister? Is she very happy?"

"I haven't heard from her," he answered lamely. "I'll be writing this evening. May I send her a message from you?"

"If you like. But I shall write myself--unless she is coming home soon."

"That is unlikely. Drummond talks of a marriage at the Scotch church at Nice. In that case I, of course, would have to go there. But nothing can be arranged till I have heard from Isla."

"Don't you feel a little sore because she did not write to tell you herself?" asked Vivien straightly and in a puzzled voice.

The relations between Mackinnon and his sister had always puzzled and saddened Vivien, and in her heart of hearts she had sometimes blamed Isla. At other times, recalling the glimpse of the real woman she had obtained on that never-to-be-forgotten day at the Lodge of Creagh, she wondered whether there was not something in the background which, if known, would have explained everything and justified Isla.

"Well, you see, we are not a writing family, and I was so long abroad that we got a little out of touch," said Malcolm lamely again.

Vivien was fully conscious that there was evasion in the answer, but it was not her business to probe into depths with which she had no personal concern.

Quite suddenly Malcolm stood still on the road and looked at her straightly with a kind of dull fire in his eyes.

"Vivien, I must speak! I haven't the right, for there is very little I have to offer you. But I love you as my own soul--no, as some higher thing, for my soul is a poor thing to mate with yours. Will you--will you--be my wife?"

He had often anticipated this hour and had conned in secret the phrases in which he would plead with this woman for his very life.

But all the fine, set phrases fell away from him and left him bare, so that he could only blurt out his immense desire in words that had no grace of diction to commend them. Yet they were warmed by an honest passion, and they reached the heart of the woman to whom they were spoken and awoke some response in her eyes.

But she put up her hand as if she would ward off that which she feared.

"Oh, don't!" she said rather brokenly. "I don't want to hear it. I--I am afraid!"

"Afraid of what?" he asked.

And a new-born tenderness enveloped him and lifted him up from base depths to the full height of the manhood that ought to have been his had he not trailed his heritage in the dust. "Not afraid of me, my--my--darling?" he said, and it was as if the torrent was let loose. "Listen. This once will I speak, and then be silent, if you bid me, for ever. I am not worthy of you. No man could be--but I am less worthy than most. Yet if you would stoop and give the chance to prove what a man might be and could be for your sake I should worship you to the last day of my life and make your happiness, and that only, my chiefest care. For God's sake, don't send me away! At least give me a crumb of comfort. If I had but known there was a woman like you somewhere in the world--my God, if I had only known!"

The anguish of his voice appealed to the very woman in her, and, though her face was very white, she stretched out a trembling hand and touched his arm.

"Don't speak like that. It--it hurts me," she said, and her whole body seemed to quiver as if all the springs of being were stirred. "You have never heard my story. You can't know that I, too, have been down in the depths. I have suffered all, I think, that a woman can suffer. And now, I am afraid! It is--it is so terrible a thing when one is bound and there is no hope."

It was all she could permit herself to say, but the unstudied intensity of her words was more self-revealing than any deliberate account of her unhappy married life could have been.

Malcolm stood awed before it, and knew for the first time in his life what a white thing the soul of a good woman can be, and how great are the sufferings that can rend it.

And in that moment he knew that he had not the right to take her life into his; that there were no floods deep enough to wash him clean enough to mate with this woman who had been down in the depths--and who knew.

"Don't you see I am so afraid! I could not live through it a second time. I don't know you well. And I am afraid! Let us put it away now, and let us be friends, as we have been."

"It can't be," said Malcolm simply. "If that is your final answer, I will go away out of the Glen and never set foot in it again."

"Oh, but that would be terrible! It is I who can go, for what does it matter where I live now? This is your place. These are your people. You can't leave them. You ought to be proud that you were born here and that Achree is yours. It is a place that grows into one's heart. I love it more than any place I have ever seen."

"Then keep it, stay in it! Come to me, Vivien, and bless it and me," he said, moved to an eloquence which amazed even himself. "I make no pretensions. I have not been what a man should be. But there is nothing I would not try to be and to do for your sake."

She shivered slightly, but there was wavering in her eyes.

"I vowed I would never marry again. I have been often asked," she said simply. "But I have always given the same answer. It is a little harder to-day--that is all."

She suffered her eyes to meet his, and the next moment his arms were round about her, and he knew that he had won.

It was a strange wooing, and when Vivien crept back to the house, knowing that she had pledged herself to another venture on the sea of matrimony, her eyes had unfathomed depths in them.

Yet when she went to her mother's side she said never a word about her own story, but with a little accent of sad wonder in her voice asked, "Mother, Isla Mackinnon is going to marry Drummond of Garrion and who is going to tell Peter?"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CALL

Isla Mackinnon was sitting in the stone balustrade of the loggia in front of Lady Betty's villa at Nice, reading a letter that had been written three days before in the small hours of the morning at the Lodge of Creagh in Glenogle.

The sun was upon her hair and on her face, but her eyes were full of a wide and mute astonishment.

Lady Betty, attending to her own voluminous correspondence at the ormolu desk which stood across the open window of the drawing-room, saw that expression and wondered at it.

It was now a fortnight since Neil Drummond had left Nice, carrying Isla's promise with him, and this was Malcolm's first letter. It had cost him much travail, and as Isla read it through she felt its note of sincerity.

"I dare say you have heard from Drummond about his visit to me the other day. I have tried to write lots of times, but I haven't got the gift of the pen and I found it difficult to get words.

"Of course, I am glad, Isla, for Drummond is a ripping good chap and his prospects are rather splendid. You who are living with Lady Betty know what sort of fairy godmother she is to them. What I like best of all to think of is you as mistress at Garrion with plenty of money at your command. It will suit you down to the ground. There is no doubt that, as a family, we Mackinnons have been cursed through lack of money. It is easy to be good when one has plenty and nothing to worry about.

"I have waited, half hoping you would write first. But as you haven't, will you take this letter as an expression of my affectionate good will? We haven't quite understood each other up till now, but things are going to be better in future.

"I also have a bit of news for you, and I am wondering whether or not it will be a great surprise. Vivien Rosmead has promised to marry me, and we are not going to wait long--only until her brother comes home, which may be any day now. The last letters say that the initial difficulties of his bridge-building have been overcome and that he can be spared--at least for a few weeks.

"I hardly know how or what to write about this, Isla, because it is a thing that a man has a natural diffidence in speaking of. You know what Vivien is--how good, how far above me. I will try honestly to be worthy of her. I think I have convinced her of my sincerity.

"Of course she has a large private fortune, which will lift all the burdens off the old place and make it possible for us to start the new life unencumbered. The luck of the Mackinnons has turned at last and, after all our troubles, we may surely look forward to a little run of prosperity and peace. I hope you'll write to Vivien, even if you don't to me. I'm sure she expects it."