Front matter (continued 7)

Isla dropped the sheet on her lap, and her eyes swept the blue line of the sea a little wildly. The colour which the soft southern air and the restful life had wooed back to her face receded and left it a little grey. The old terror, the vague, haunting dread crept over her once more, and so insistent was it that she could not push it away.

Had the luck of the Mackinnons really turned? She was pledged to marry Neil Drummond, perhaps in two months' time, and there was not an atom of joyful anticipation in her heart. Malcolm was engaged to Vivien Rosmead, and what would be the end?

In the whole of Malcolm's letter there was not one reference to the past. She knew him too well to hope for a moment that he had laid it bare to Vivien Rosmead--nay, rather was she certain that he had trusted to luck. The purple lady!--the vision of her arose before Isla's eyes and shut out the incomparable view of the terraced garden, the blossoming trees, the wide blue sweep of the southern sea.

A quick tap on the window pane attracted her attention, and, looking up, she beheld Lady Betty beckoning to her sharply. She rose slowly, picked up the letter, and went in through the open window.

"What ails ye, lass?" asked the old lady brusquely. "You look as if ye had the wail of the pibroch in your ears."

"I've had a letter from Malcolm, Lady Betty."

"Well? And is he ill pleased about you and Neil?"

"Oh, no. He tells me he is engaged to Mrs. Rodney Payne. I want to go home, Lady Betty."

Lady Betty sat back in her chair, set her eyeglass more firmly on her aristocratic old nose, and looked Isla straight in the face.

"What for do ye want to go home?"

"If I could tell you I would," she answered simply. "You have the gift, and you know that when the call comes one does not question, but just rises up to obey. That is how it is with me. The Glen is calling me. There is something for me to do at the Lodge of Creagh."

Isla spoke quite quietly, and the old lady neither flouted nor rebuked her.

"It's very unfortunate. Do you know that every day for the next month is filled up? And you have been such a success here and so many wish to know you that we need not have an idle hour."

"I shall have to go," was all that Isla said.

"And what will become of me? What will be the end of it? I have the house till Easter. Will you come back after you have answered the call? Neil could bring you."

"I can't promise anything," answered Isla. "Will you mind very much if I go to-day?"

Lady Betty did mind, but she knew that to throw obstacles in the way was useless. She might delay Isla's departure, but she could not altogether prevent it. Besides, there was the call. When it came clear and swift, as it had done to Isla, everything else had to give way.

"You would travel by yourself? You are not afraid?" she said kindly.

"Oh, I am afraid of nothing, dear Lady Betty, but the forces that work in the dark--the things we can't grapple with."

Lady Betty once or twice slowly inclined her head.

"I understand. Well, then, make your arrangements. The train-de-luxe to-night, I suppose, and London the day after to-morrow? Oh, Isla, ye mind me on nothing but a petrel that has no rest night or day from the storm. God go with ye, my dear, and at the long last give ye peace."

The words were very solemnly, very tenderly spoken, and Isla with a swift movement knelt beside the old lady's chair.

"Dearest Lady Betty! How can I thank you? I won't even try. You know--don't you?--oh, you must know how full my heart is!----"

Lady Betty dropped her fine white hand with its sparkling rings on the girl's bent head.

"I know nothing but good of you, Isla Mackinnon, and I love ye as ye were my own. But, oh, lass, my heart is heavy, and I would fain rise up and away to the hills with ye! My one consolation is that you are going back to Neil. I will wire to him this evening."

"No, don't, dear Lady Betty. It would be certain to bring him to London. I want no one to meet me there. If I have to sleep the night I will go to Agnes Fraser's. I--I would rather be alone."

Then something smote hard and cold on Lady Betty's heart, and she knew by the inward vision of her soul that the thing on which she had built high her pride and her hope would never take place. She did not know what was going to happen to prevent it, but she felt that Neil's cause was lost from that hour!

She suffered no depression to manifest itself, however. She undertook to still Kitty's garrulous questioning, and she herself saw Isla off at the station by the night train. But she did not close an eye all that night, being haunted by a sense of the futility of earthly planning and of the vanity of human hopes.

Isla arrived at Charing Cross Station at five o'clock in the afternoon of one of the loveliest of spring days. By that time she had a quite clear idea of what she wished to do. Speaking of it afterwards, she declared that each step of the way seemed to have been planned out for her, leaving her in no doubt whatever about the next.

She had her luggage transferred to the Charing Cross Hotel, engaged a room for the night, and, having enjoyed a very excellent cup of tea, sallied forth to take an omnibus for the West End.

Those weeks spent under Agnes Fraser's roof, and the long days she had utilized in traversing the length and breadth of London in search of impossible employment, had given her an intimate knowledge of the best and quickest and most economical means of transit.

But on a pleasant spring evening the omnibus was the most enjoyable. She had bought a copy of the "Morning Post" at the station, and she unfolded it in her seat with a view to taking a glance through the pages. There two items of intelligence which were of the deepest interest to her met her eyes. The first was purely personal and occurred a little way down the page, below the Court Circular.

"A marriage has been arranged, and will take place before the end of the season, between Malcolm John Mackinnon, Esq. of Achree and Glenogle, and Mrs. Rodney Payne of Carleton, Virginia, and 31 Avenue Castellare, Champs Elysees, Paris."

Her face flushed as she read these significant words and for the moment she felt as if all her fellow-travellers had read them with her and were aware of their meaning.

She sat a long time pondering, surprised beyond measure at the announcement, which seemed premature. She wondered who was responsible for its appearance, but decided that it was probably Malcolm who had sent it to the newspaper for the purpose of establishing his credit and consolidating his position. As yet Isla was disposed to be hard on him and to credit him with merely sordid motives.

Turning over the page she discovered the second item of intelligence, which riveted her attention immediately and sent her thoughts flying in another direction. It was under the heading of Wills and Bequests, and merely stated that the will of Mrs. Jane Bodley-Chard had been proved at seventy-five thousand pounds, the greater part of which passed to her husband, who was her sole executor.

By the time Isla had come out of the reverie induced by the reading of these paragraphs the omnibus had rolled her to her destination.

She alighted at the Marble Arch, crossed the way, and proceeded quickly along the Edgeware Road until she reached the end of the street where she had first seen Malcolm with the purple lady. She had not made a note of the address, but she remembered it vividly, and she made no mistake about the number.

Her slightly hesitating ring was answered by a person who seemed to be a charwoman, and who, in reply to her inquiry for Mrs. Bisley, shook her head.

"She ain't 'ere, Miss."

"But can't you tell me where she is, or at least how long she has been gone?"

"Oh, she ain't bin gone long--only since this mornin'. Are you a friend of 'ers?" she asked, peering rather inquisitively into Isla's face.

"At least I can claim to know her, and I particularly wished to see her to-day."

"Well, you carn't. She's gone to Scotland. She was orful upset this mornin' by sumfink she saw in the papers, and she went orf all of a 'eap, like, not even takin' proper luggage wiv 'er. Said she didn't know w'en she'd be back."

Isla turned away, so sick at heart that her dismay was visible on her face.

"I don't know nothink, but it's got summat to do wiv that military gent. she knew in India. A toff, 'e was, and she expected to marry 'im, don't you see? And 'e'es given 'er the slip--leastways that's wot I think. But, of course, I don't know nothink for certing, and you needn't say as I said anythink. I didn't hev no call fer to say anythink, reely."

Isla thanked her and turned away.

She was just one day too late. What could she do now? Even if she were to hasten by the night train to Glenogle, what could she do there? A meeting between Vivien and this woman seemed inevitable. At least Malcolm would have to explain his position and, if possible, justify himself.

Just for one brief moment she regretted having acted on the swift impulse to leave the pleasant sanctuary she had found by the Mediterranean Sea. What good had she done, or could she do? She had only once more committed the mistake of thinking that she could arbitrate in the destiny of others--she, who had so sadly mismanaged her own!

She crept dejectedly along the street, still clutching the paper in her hand, and when she reached the wider thoroughfare crossed it in a slanting direction and, as if through force of habit, turned in at Cromer Street and made her way to Agnes Fraser's familiar door.

It was the busiest hour of that good woman's day, because her first floor came in to dinner at half-past seven and it was now half-past six. But when she heard who it was that had asked for her she ran up the kitchen stairs, several steps at a time.

"Oh, Miss Isla, excuse my apron and the flour on my hands. But I couldna wait. I'm terribly busy jist for a meenit or twa. Can you come in and wait till I get the denners fairly on the road? It'll no tak' me mair nor a quarter o' an 'oor."

"I can't wait, dear woman--at least not now. I didn't mean to see you to-night, really, but I had business in this neighbourhood, and I just ran in for a look at you. I shall be in Glenogle to-morrow night."

"Yes," said Agnes breathlessly. "And it is true that ye are going to marry Mr. Drummond? I've aye been expeckin' to hear from yoursel' aboot it. But Elspeth Maclure says that it's quite true and that everybody is pleased I am, I'm sure. I jist sat doon and had a guid greet when Elspeth's letter cam'. And Andra lauched at me and said it wasna a thing to greet ower. But that wass hoo I felt."

Isla nodded, and her proud mouth trembled.

"You're lookin' fine--quite like yersel'," resumed Agnes. "And when is it to be, Miss Isla? Oh, hang their denners! Come in here and let me hear ye speak."

But Isla, laughing a little hysterically, shook her head, and began to move towards the door.

"It was very bad of me not to write, but I've been passing through all sorts of phases, Agnes, and even now I don't know quite where I am. When I get home I'll sit down and write you a very long letter. Have you seen the 'Morning Post' to-day with the announcement of my brother's engagement to Mrs. Rodney Payne?"

"No, but that news was in Elspeth's letter, too, and so Achree is on the mend again, thank God. Are ye awa'? Oh, I am sorry, Miss Isla! I would have liked to keep you for the nicht. Can ye not come back?"

"Not to-night. But probably I shall be in London again soon. Good night, dear soul, and thank you very much. Whatever the future may hold for me, Agnes Fraser will have a warm place in it. I hope that some day I shall be able to thank you properly for all you did for me."

Agnes was able to give only a very divided attention to the cooking when she returned to the gloom of her underground kitchen, while Isla rode back the way she had come, singularly out of love with life.

She had done no good by her impetuous journey--none at all. She was half minded to take the night mail to Calais again and throw herself once more on the tender mercies of Lady Betty. Her uppermost feeling was one of shrinking from Glenogle and all that might happen there.

The dusk was falling when she got down at Trafalgar Square, where she crossed to the hotel entrance at Charing Cross. It is always busy there, arrivals and departures taking place at all hours of the day and night. A four-wheeler, piled high with luggage, stood before the door, and a tall man in a long travelling-coat with a fur collar was directing the hotel porter what he wished to be done with the larger boxes.

He turned his head as Isla was about to pass in, and he found herself face to face with Peter Rosmead.

It was a supreme moment for them both. All Rosmead's heart leaped to his eyes, he dropped his dispatch-case, and grasped both her hands while his gaze covered her with an overmastering and encompassing tenderness.

"This is a bit of God's own luck!" he said, and his voice was thick with the passion of his soul. "How is it you are here?"

"I came from Nice only to-day. I am going home to Glenogle to-morrow," she answered, and her voice had a faint, far-away sound in it, as if she suddenly felt very tired. "And you?"

"Just arrived by the Norddeutscher-Lloyd steamer at Southampton at noon to-day. Are you here alone for the night?"

She inclined her head.

"It's God's own luck," he repeated. "You'll dine with me, then--in half an hour or an hour, or at any time that you choose to name?"

She hesitated just a moment. Should she refuse? But why? In another day it would be all over. Only the present hour was hers. She nodded and sped from him quickly, ascending to her room on the third floor by the lift.

When she entered it she turned the key and looked round a little wildly, working her hands in front of her nervously. Then, with a sob, she threw herself face downwards on the bed and buried her face.

She wanted to weep, but a song was in her heart, because, though she was pledged to marry Neil Drummond and was bound to him by every tie of gratitude and honour, she belonged to Peter Rosmead and he to her, and nothing could alter it. For the moment she, who had had so little of the joy of life, gave herself up to the vision of the might-have-been. And it was so glorious that it transformed the bleak hotel bedroom into a heavenly place.

After a long time, when she had risen and was making her toilet, there came a quick tap at the door. When she opened it a chambermaid stood without, smiling.

"Please, Miss, can I help you? The gentleman is waiting, and dinner is served in eighty-nine."

CHAPTER XXVIII

WITH HASTENING FEET

Because this was her hour and to-morrow all would be over, Isla did not disdain a woman's art. She wished to look beautiful for once in the eyes of the man who loved her, even though she should henceforth disappear from them for ever.

She put on a wonderful frock that had come from the hands of a clever couturière at Nice--a simple black thing, fashioned with such consummate art that it seemed moulded to her figure, showing all its grace. As Riviera fashion dictates, it was high to the neck, with a yoke of clear net through which her white skin shone, while a string of pearls about her stately throat made her sole adornment.

"Oh, Miss, you do look nice!" said the chambermaid as she stepped back from fastening the skirt.

Isla smiled into her eyes. Then she asked where she could find eighty-nine. The girl took her down to the next floor and to the door of the room where Rosmead, in evening dress, was waiting.

"Come," he said with a smile.

He drew her in, and the door was shut.

The warmth of the cheerful fire and the fragrance of flowers met her on the threshold of the private room, where Rosmead had ordered the meal to be served. This was no night for them to dine in a public restaurant--they must be immune from prying eyes.

"You don't look so tired now! And to think I was cursing the luck that would keep me here for another twenty-four hours! I have an appointment at the Colonial Office to-morrow and can't go north till Friday. But I never in my wildest dreams anticipated this."

She smiled as she took the chair he offered. Her eyes had a far-away look, her cheeks were softly flushed, she seemed like a dream-woman, and she was so beautiful that Rosmead blamed himself that the vision of her he had carried with him so long had fallen so far short of the reality.

The waiter came in with the soup presently and waited upon them deftly. But Isla ate little. While the small, daintily-appointed, and exquisite meal was being served they talked of commonplace things--of the Riviera in the season, of Rosmead's business in America, of the bridge whose foundations had taken so long to lay.

"But it is accomplished, isn't it?" she asked with her swift glance across the table. "Of course I always knew it would be. I remember that you said that in your estimation difficulties existed only to be demolished."

"That was a very high and mighty utterance," said Rosmead a little shyly. "But this time I thought I was going to get beaten. Do you know that I left the very day after the thing had passed the bar of my own judgment, just five days after the other experts had pronounced it unassailable."

"You always trust yourself last?" she said inquiringly.

"It is I who have to pay the price of failure, and so I leave nothing to chance," he answered. "Will you take nothing to drink? I am a teetotaller myself. Some day I will tell you why. But you are tired, and wine will do you good."

She shook her head.

"No. It is delightful to think that one can dine without it. I do believe that you are the first man I have ever met who could."

"Oh, come!" said Rosmead, laughing. "Where I come from there are many."

Isla laughed a little and shrugged her shoulders. She was feeling so warm and comforted and happy that she wished the hour to last for ever.

"How kind of you to think of this room! As I was dressing I thought how horrid it would be in the restaurant to-night."

"I knew it would be. I grudged it. This was the thing," he said.

And his pulses thrilled as he thought of all the days that were coming when they should dine together alone.

It came to an end at last, and Rosmead showed haste in getting the table cleared and the coffee-tray brought in.

Then he wheeled a big easy chair towards the fire for her, and he himself stood against the end of the mantel-shelf, while an odd silence fell between them.

"I am sure you want to smoke. I should like it," she said a little nervously, fearing what she saw in his eyes.

He shook his head.

"That would be desecration. By and by, perhaps, but not yet. I wonder if you know just what it meant to me to see you to-night downstairs, just what it means to have you here like this, alone?"

She made no answer, and the veil dropped over her eyes, but her lips trembled, and she worked with her fingers in the fringes of the delicate white scarf which had fallen from her shoulders across her arms.

"You must know that I love you," he said. Then in a low voice which vibrated keenly with intense feeling he added, "I have lived for this hour during all these interminable months. I have risen up each new day, thinking it brought me a day nearer to it and to you. I know all you have suffered. Let me try to make you forget. Give your precious life into my keeping, Isla. You are the only woman I have ever cared for. The knowledge that you were waiting somewhere for me has kept me a boy in heart for your sake. Will you give yourself to me?"

There was terror, anguish, hopelessness in her eyes. She gave a small shuddering sigh and buried her face in her hands. Instantly he was on his knees beside her, trying with a very gentle force to take her hands away.

Suddenly she drew back, rose to her feet, and faced him--very pale, very stricken, but wholly calm.

"Oh, please don't say any more. I--I must not listen. It was even wicked of me to come here when I knew--when I knew--and even hoped that you would speak. I--I am not free. I am the promised wife of another man."

Rosmead's face became set like a stone.

"But you are the woman God has given to me," he said quietly. "Who is the man?"

"Neil Drummond," she answered feverishly. "Don't look at me like that! Let me sit down again, and you stand where you were before and I will tell you how it came about. You said that you knew all I have suffered. But you don't. I want to tell you everything. Then you will understand."

He obeyed her to the letter, and with the breadth of the hearth between them she began her recital.

She went back a long way, even to the days of her troubled girlhood, keeping nothing back, telling him in simple language all the story of her life.

All unconscious was she of its complete self-revelation. Peter Rosmead, listening, with only a brief word interjected here and there, was filled with a pity so vast that he did not know how to contain himself. He saw this young woman-creature, at the time when she ought to have been enjoying girlhood, doing not only a woman's work in the world but also forced to act the man's part--to face abnormal difficulties, to solve the problems of existence in loneliness and without help.

And when she came to the end and related simply, yet with a sort of bald power, the story of her London experiences, he could bear no more.

"My God, Isla, you must cease! I tell you I can't hear any more."

"You must," she said clearly, "because this is the part which explains--which explains--why I am not free. You see, I had got so very tired and hopeless, and my money was all done, and I had no more heart left to fight. And just then Neil Drummond came, and he was like a brother to me, and--and he had loved me all my life, and I thought I, too, could care a little, and that we might be happy together."

He put his hand up to his forehead with a sudden gesture and kept it there until he felt the flash of Isla's mournful reproach on his face.

"If only you had written a single line!" she said almost piteously. "If I had ever known or guessed that you remembered my existence I could have held out. But I was so tired, so tired!"

She who had been strong so long, whom trouble had never daunted, gave way before the insistent clamour of her woman's heart. For the moment she could not forgo the real heritage of her womanhood--could not make the final renunciation. For she was not old yet, and life can be very long to the sad.

Rosmead was as one who took swift and decisive counsel with himself.

He lifted a chair to the hearth in front of her and sat down so that he could the better see her face.

"Listen to me, my dear," he said in his quiet, compelling voice. "We must face this thing together, try to grasp exactly what it means, and decide what is to be done. Let us do it quietly, try to deal with it as if we were not the chief actors in it."

Isla sat back and folded her hands on her lap. She was willing to listen--nay, listen she must. And, somehow, she did not seem to care. She had rolled away the stone from the door of her heart. Peter Rosmead knew that she loved him, just as she knew that he loved her. Well, he was strong and good, he would decide and act for her. Hence the peace upon her face, at which Rosmead, himself torn with conflict, wondered.

"It does not mean only a disappointment to me--a lifelong disappointment, the overthrow of everything that I have been waiting for," he began slowly. "It means the shipwreck of three lives. If you don't care for Drummond how can you be a good wife to him or make him happy?"

"There are many women who are married to men they do not care very much for. I have seen them, and they seem to get along," was all she said.

"What other women might do with impunity you couldn't. You are the soul of truth, and, moreover, you cannot hide what you think and feel. If you could have done it better, dear woman, life might perhaps have been a little less hard for you."

"But after a while," she said in a low voice, "it might be possible. I should try very hard. And, after all, it is not happiness we are here for. One has only to look around to see how very little of it there is in this world."

"By heaven, Isla, I can't accept that--no, I can't! God means us to be happy. It is what He has created us for. Only we do wrong things. It is we who make the shipwreck, and I believe that if you go on with this marriage you will ruin three lives."

She only shook her head.

"Is Drummond the man--do you think?--to be contented with what you purpose to give him--wifely duty, without wifely love?"

"He is very good," she said wearily. "His kindness and his patience never fail."

"That may be true. But afterwards would come the crucial test. You can't do it, Isla--you can't! There is--there must be a way out, and we must find it together. Will you leave it to me?"

"I'll leave everything! I am so tired! I can do nothing more. But I will be true to Neil Drummond. I may tell him, but I will keep my promise if he holds me to it, and if you will let me go now I will say good night. It is nearly ten o'clock. I have been travelling for two days, and I feel as if I could not bear any more."

He instantly forgot his own sore disappointment and was concerned only for her with that great and tender concern which belongs to the strong and which the tired woman felt so perilously sweet.

"Just a moment; what about to-morrow? Can't you wait until Friday? If I could get away I would travel with you to-morrow, but it is impossible to do so without giving offence in quarters where it is important not to give offence. Will you wait till Friday? You are not fit to travel alone."

She looked up at him, and her eyes wavered.

"I should like to, but I can't stay here. Let us meet in the morning and decide. At least, I need not travel until the two o'clock train."

He suffered her to go then, merely touching her hand at parting, because of the barrier that was between.

Rosmead had boasted that difficulties in his way existed only for the purpose of being demolished, but he was now in front of one that taxed his boasted powers.

Isla slept the dreamless sleep of complete exhaustion, but he fought with the problem the night through, and in the morning he was no nearer its solution. They did not meet at breakfast, but at ten o'clock she sent him a message that she would see him in the drawing-room.

She met him, tranquil and calm-eyed, a little pale, but without trace of stress or strain. Rosmead himself had a slightly haggard look.

"Good morning," she said quietly. "I think I shall wait until to-morrow. To-day I shall go back to my old quarters in Cromer Street, Bayswater, and I shall meet you to-morrow at the station."

"And am I not to see you to-day at all?" he asked, and his eyes travelled hungrily over her face.

She shook her head.

"I don't think so. If there is any more to be said there will be time to say it to-morrow. You will help me to do the right thing, won't you? It is--it is what I look for in you."

The words were a rebuke to Peter Rosmead, but he took it well.

"I will do the right thing--yes," he answered humbly, "but only until we get back to Glenogle. Then, I warn you, I'm going to fight for you with all the powers I possess. I don't know how it is going to be done, but win you I shall. You have not come into my life only to go out of it again."

She smiled as she turned away, and a strange, deep contentment, gathered in her eyes. She asked no questions, troubled herself not at all about what was coming. So far as she was concerned the fight was over, and the issue lay with Peter Rosmead. Her trust in him was so large and fine a thing that she was content to leave herself and her cause in his strong, tender hands and to let him undertake for her.

They parted then, and they met no more until they entered the train together at Euston next morning. But during the hours of that interminable day there was no sense of distance or of separation between them. The same sky covered them, they breathed the same air, they were within call of each other; it sufficed.

Rosmead went early to the station, and he had made his full arrangements for Isla's comfort by the time she arrived. She smiled when she saw a first-class compartment marked "reserved," but she made neither remark nor demur. She had left him to legislate for her and would not cavil at trifles. That she was happy for the moment there was no need to ask.

Many times that day when Rosmead looked at her dear face he registered a mighty vow that the man did not live who would be able to keep her from him. Drummond must take his defeat like a man. He was young, and there were others to choose from. In all his life Rosmead had not, until now, met a woman who could stir his pulses or make him long to lay his freedom at her feet as a thing for which he had no further use.

The train glided out of the station, and the sunshine was upon their faces and in their hearts. Rosmead, an accomplished traveller, had left nothing undone to secure the comfort of his fellow-traveller, but all his love and care were powerless to save her from the last bomb flung by fate.

She did not care for papers, she said, but she begged him to look at his, while she watched the swift retreat of London roofs before the speeding train.

He unfolded the pages of the "Daily Telegraph," and had Isla happened to glance round at the moment she must have discovered that something fresh and terrible had happened.

On the first page this paragraph confronted Rosmead's eyes under large head-lines:--

"TRAGEDY IN SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS.

"A sad occurrence took place yesterday on Loch Earn in Western Perthshire--one of those deplorable accidents which show what care should be taken in handling small boats on these treacherous inland seas. Full particulars are not to hand, but it seems that late last evening Mr. Malcolm Mackinnon of Achree and Glenogle, who had been in Lochearnhead earlier in the day, left there, ostensibly to go to his home at the Lodge of Creagh, four miles distant. That he had not done so was clearly evidenced by the fact that his body was found by a boatman, washed up on the shores of Loch Earn at a point about two miles from its head. The boat, bottom upwards, was floating near. The day had been one of the very stormiest of the season, with blinding showers and a squally wind. Mr. Mackinnon was a skilled oarsman, but it is supposed that he had been caught by one of the sudden squalls which so frequently rise on these Highland lochs and constitute a danger that it is necessary to guard against. It is not known why Mr. Mackinnon should have gone on the loch late in the afternoon, and he had no fishing gear with him. The occurrence has cast a gloom over the whole Glen, where the family are so well known and so beloved. The tragedy is accentuated by the fact that Mr. Mackinnon had only recently become engaged to Mrs. Rodney Payne, whose family are the present tenants of Achree. We understand that Mr. Mackinnon's only sister is at present abroad. Much sympathy is felt and expressed for her."

Rosmead, with the paper held high in front of him. stared steadily at it, his face very white and set, his lips twitching. It was a full minute before he obtained complete control of himself and dared to glance over the edge of the paper at his companion.

But she apparently had forgotten him. Her chin was resting on her hand, and her eyes were fixed upon the landscape, bathed in sunshine, which was speeding past them. She did not even look round when he carefully folded the paper and put it well under his travelling-rug in the tar corner of the rack. Then he lifted the "Times" and glanced through it, only to find on the second page the same item of intelligence considerably condensed. That also he removed, and took up one of the magazines.

He was totally unaware that he was holding it upside down. He had to find some way out of this awful difficulty--to coin words which would acquaint Isla with what seemed to be the final tragedy of her life. He was scarcely alive to the fact that he now learned for the first time of Mackinnon's engagement to Vivien, the letter informing him of it having only reached America the day after he had left it.

He had concern only for one at the moment, and his sole consideration was how to break the news to her. One moment he thought of giving her the newspaper casually, and thus getting over it; the next he thought he would keep it from her to the last moment. But they were speeding towards Glenogle, where the last act of Malcolm Mackinnon's tragic life had been played.

Presently Isla turned to him with a smile.

"It is very pleasant to be going home, don't you think? I was just counting how many weeks I had been out of Glenogle and thinking how glad I shall be to see it again. When I left it I never thought I should wish to come back any more."

"I am glad you feel like that," he said with an odd note of strain in his voice. "I have ordered the car to meet us at Stirling, so that we shall get home ahead of the train."

Her eyes sparkled with a child-like enjoyment.

"Oh, that will be delightful! I wrote to Malcolm yesterday. He will probably be waiting at Lochearnhead Station. I must wire to him at Crewe."

"I'll see to it," said Rosmead heavily, and his tongue felt as if it were cleaving to the roof of his mouth.

He took her to lunch, and she enjoyed it all, though it concerned her that he ate so little. She was not troubling herself that the other matter seemed to have disappeared into the background, and that he made not the smallest allusion to it. She was grateful to him for his consideration, but she was not surprised. From Peter Rosmead she would expect only the best. He would neither say nor do that which would vex the heart of a woman or increase by a hairsbreadth her perplexities.

Oh, she had made no mistake! she thought as she glanced confidently across at his grave, strong face, when she left him to act for her.

After carefully observing that the papers were out of the way, he got out at Crewe and made his way hastily to the telegraph office to send an explanatory message to his mother. By that time he had arrived at a quite clear estimate of what was in front and at a decision as to the right thing to do.

He would tell Isla after they were in the car, and prepare her as best he might for what she had to meet.

But he was spared the need. All his carefully concerted plan for saving her was rendered unavailing by the shrill tones of a newsboy's voice. The passing of the smallest coin of the realm in exchange for the first edition of an evening paper, and Rosmead got back to the compartment to discover that Isla knew the truth.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE LAST LEAF ON THE TREE

Once more the burying-place of the Mackinnons in Balquhidder kirkyard was opened to receive a Laird of Achree. While a small band of mourners stood by it in the soft spring sunshine Isla sat with her Aunt Jean in the library of the Lodge of Creagh, staring in front of her with a far-away expression on her face. Lady Mackinnon, who had not yet recovered from the effects of the hurried journey from Barras, was talking in subdued tones about the future. But Isla heard her as she heard her not.

"Of course you will just come to Barras, my dear, and we'll do our best. It is a very fortunate thing that the Rosmeads have Achree for another year and more. It will give us time to turn round. Don't look like that, Isla. It is all very terrible, of course, but it is not the end of everything."

At the moment there was a tap at the door, and Diarmid's grey head appeared, his lace looking old and worn, his eyes tired with weeping.

"Please, Miss Isla, it's a leddy. She will not go away, whatefer, and I have putten her in the little pack room till I ask whether you will see her."

"No, of course not. I will," said Lady Mackinnon, bustling up. "A lady! Don't you know her, Diarmid? Hasn't she given you a name?"

"No, my Leddy, I don't ken her. She's frem to Glenogle, and she says Miss Isla would not ken her name, forby."

Isla was already at the door.

"No, Aunt Jean. Thank you very much, but I must see her. I think I know who it is."

Rather disappointed--for anything would have served to break the dreary monotony of this awful house--Lady Mackinnon sank back into her chair, but a moment after, acting on a sudden impulse, she rose and swiftly drew up the blind. She then saw that a hired trap was waiting outside the gate, the man nodding on the box-seat, while the reins lay loosely across the horse's neck.

She knew nothing of the tragedy at the back of Malcolm's life, and, though it had been more than whispered in the Glen that there had been no accident on Loch Earn, but that Mackinnon had gone forth, meaning to take his own life in the way that seemed easiest and would occasion least remark, these rumours had not been permitted to reach Creagh.

But Isla, in her heart, had knowledge and confirmation of these things, though she had not heard of them.

How surprised, then, would Lady Mackinnon have been could she have heard what passed in the little room behind.

Isla entered quietly, closed the door, and faced the woman with whom she had already spoken twice and who, in some strange way, was mixed up with the tragedy of Malcolm's life and death.

"You're not surprised to see me, I can see," she said without preliminary. "Did you know I was in Scotland?"

"Yes," answered Isla clearly. "Please to sit down and tell me all that you wish to tell me and that it is necessary I should hear. But first, let me ask one question--Are you, were you, my brother's wife?"

She shook her head.

"I ought to have been, but I wasn't. That was the beginning and the end of the trouble. I waited for him so long, and he promised me faithful and true that if I would only wait quietly till he got out of his sea of troubles he would marry me."

"I understand," said Isla rather faintly. "Please say no more now, but tell me as quickly as you can what you know about it all."

Neither sat down. Isla stood by the table with her white, frail hand on the red baize of the tablecover, her shadowed eyes looking forth with a strange sad pity on the woman's face.

All her high colour had faded, her eyes were dimmed with weeping, she had forgotten to take a pride in her beautiful hair, she looked what she was--a dishevelled and broken creature on whom even a hard heart must needs have had compassion. And Isla's heart was not hard any more.

"Well, you see, Miss Mackinnon," she said, wiping her eyes with her sodden handkerchief, "you don't want to hear the whole story as to how we got to know each other in India and how fond he was of me and I of him. So I'll hurry on to where I met you first. I came to Scotland then, because he hadn't written to me for such a long time and because, when I learned that his father had died and that he had come into the property, I thought it was time I looked after myself. He spoke very fair then--explained how hard up he was and what a tangle everything was in, and he promised that if only I'd wait other six months he'd make everything straight and right. He told me all that right down by the water at Strathyre that night when he rode down from here to see me--the night before you and I met on the London train. Well, I went back to London, because he asked me to trust him a little longer. But I was not very easy in my mind. I kept quiet, living on my little bit of money and doing a bit of needlework and going out occasionally with a friend, but never forgetting that some day I was to be lady here and wife to the man I loved. Then I saw the thing in the paper--that he was going to marry the American woman, and I think that I went mad for a bit. I don't know quite where I was or what I did. I only know that I rose and went to Scotland straight to the hotel at Lochearnhead, and in the afternoon I walked up to Achree and asked for Mrs. Rodney Payne."

"Oh!" said Isla with a little gasp, and she pressed her hand to her heart.

"You feel for her. Perhaps she's a friend of yours, but it had to be done. You don't know what it is to see another woman get hold of the man you care for and who belongs to you. I like you, and I pray God you may never know what it's like. Well, I told her just the whole story--the story I haven't told you, though you're sharp enough and can fill it all up.

"What did she say?--not much, but I could see that it finished him in that quarter, which was all I cared about.

"Well, then I sent for him. When he came he had seen her. I could tell it by the white despair on his face, and then I knew that it was not her money he wanted at all, but that he cared about her as he had never cared about me, that she was his own kind--the sort that would lift him right up and make the best of him.

"Something seemed to snap inside of me. I believe it was my heart that broke. I didn't reproach him. He did all the reproaching--there, in the dark, by that God-forsaken loch. We seemed to walk for hours, and I don't know where we were when he left me. He said his life was over, but I never thought or believed he would take it away. To tell you the truth, Miss, I didn't believe he had the courage to do it."

"You think he did it, then?" said Isla in a low, tense whisper.

"I know it. He simply went out in that boat, never meaning to come back. You and I know it, but we needn't tell. And anyway, perhaps it's better; only I wish it had been me--I wish it had been me!"

Her voice broke into a little wail, and she covered her face with her hands. Isla went to her side and laid her hand, which trembled very much, on her shoulder.

"I am very sorry for you. If I knew how to help or comfort you I would."

She caught Isla's hand, laid her cheek a moment against it, and then began to walk unsteadily towards the door.

"You're a good woman--one of the best," she said, pausing a moment. "I hope you'll be happy yet. You'll never hear of me again. I'm going away to-night back to my own place. But I thought I'd like to see you before I went and tell you the truth. Good-bye."

But even after Isla's hand was on the door she lingered, as if something still remained unsaid.

"When you see her tell her that I loved him and that I could never have been so hard on him as she was. If he had really cared, tell her, she would have forgiven even me."

"Oh, hush!" cried Isla in distress. "You don't know all she has suffered. But it is no good to talk. Life is an awful thing. Thank you for coming. I shall often think of you, and, though I have no right, for I, too, have been hard, I'll--I'll pray for you."

A kiss passed between them, and they parted--never to meet again in this world.

Isla went through the house and out by the kitchen door to the hill beyond. She was so long gone that when she came back the Garrion carriage was at the door, and Sir Tom with Neil Drummond was in the drawing-room with her aunt.

Isla's face went a little white when she saw Neil, and she stood by the tea table with her back to him for a moment. Even Sir Tom's genial personality could not relieve the great strain. When Isla after a time, in response to a certain question in Drummond's eyes, left the room with him, Sir Tom turned eagerly to his wife.

"We must positively get away in the morning, Jean. Another day in this house would finish me. There seems to be a curse on Achree. Have you spoken to Isla, and is she going back with us?"

"I don't know. She hardly speaks at all, but of course she must go. There isn't anything else to do, and the sooner Neil Drummond follows her and we have a quiet wedding at Barras the better it will be. It is the only solution of the problem of Isla's life. I'm more tired of that problem than of anything else in this world, Tom."

He took a turn across the floor.

"The American chap was at the funeral. There's something uncommon taking about him. He and Drummond were talking together for a good half-hour after we had left the churchyard, and, judging from their faces, I'm sure it was some matter in which they had a life-and-death interest that they were talking about. Then Drummond, looking a little white about the gills, came up to me and said he was coming over to see Isla, and asked if I would drive with him."

"It was quite natural for him to come and see Isla, of course, and probably he was only discussing the situation with Mr. Rosmead. Neil will have to act for Isla now."

Lady Mackinnon had very little imagination, but Sir Tom was not easy in his mind.

Isla went out of doors with Neil Drummond, and they climbed up the slope to the edge of the Moor, and there they stood still. They were very near the house, but nobody could see them, and Isla waited--for what she did not know.

"I've seen Rosmead, Isla. I suppose the thing he has told me is true?"

"What did he tell you?"

"That you and he--that you and he care for each other."

"Yes, that is true. But I will keep my promise to you, Neil. A little suffering more or less--what does it matter? There is nothing else in the world."

He smiled a little hardly.

"I've cared a long time, and a lot, Isla. But I haven't sunk so low----" he made answer. "I give you back your freedom."

"But even if you do, it does not follow that I will marry him."

"If you care about him it is what you must do," he said quietly. "Tell me, Isla--Are you sure about this? If I thought there was any chance I wouldn't give you up. Are you sure?"

She was silent for a moment, her unfathomable eyes following the flight of a wild bird on the wing until it was lost in illimitable distance.

Neil Drummond had no great gifts. He was only a simple, honest soul who did his duty according to his lights, but in that moment he tasted to the full at once the anguish and the high joy of renunciation. Such clear understanding of a woman's heart came to him that for a moment he forgot the intolerable ache of his own.

Isla's gaze came back and fell upon his face as she answered simply, "I am sure. I would follow him to the end of the world without a question or a doubt, and I would not have a wish apart from his will. That is how I care, Neil. If I could feel like that for you I would give the best years of my life. I didn't seek this thing," she went on when he made no answer. "It came to me, and I think when it is like that we----we cannot help ourselves, Neil. It is part of the mystery of life. I am so tired with it all that I would wish to-day that I could lie down in Balquhidder beside them."

"Your life is only beginning," he said slowly and with difficulty. "I will say good-bye, and I will ask you to believe that there is nothing in the world I want so much as your happiness. You have had none, and, though I am not the man who can give it to you, I ask you to take it--and to take it soon--from the man who can."

Thus did Neil Drummond, a commonplace, everyday man such as we meet so often upon the highway, rise to the height of renunciation and prove himself a hero.

Isla's eyes swam in a strange tenderness as she turned to him, trying to thank him. But even while she would have spoken he had left her, and soon she heard the rumble of the wheels on the road--the wheels which took him back to Garrion--never more, in obedience to a lover's quest, to speed across the rough road to the Moor of Creagh.

After a time Isla went back very quietly and soberly to the house to astonish her relatives by another vagary.

"I am ready to go to Barras to-morrow, Aunt Jean, and to stop as long as you like."

"And will Neil come with us or after us, my dear?" asked Lady Mackinnon, her shrewd eyes lighting up cheerfully. "You know there is room and to spare in the house."

"No, Aunt Jean, Neil will not come. I am not going to marry him now--nor any man," she answered.

And she sped away to make her preparations for the journey which, an hour before, she thought nothing on earth would induce her to undertake.

A strange peace seemed to brood that night upon the Lodge of Creagh and the Moor of Silence. Sleep was very far from Isla's eyes as she sat before her uncurtained window, looking out upon the limitless space on which the white moonlight lay.

The end of all things had come, so far as human judgment could determine. The last Mackinnon of Achree slept with his forefathers, and she, a poor weak woman of no account, was left to tie up the broken threads. Her thoughts of Malcolm were very tender, nor had she any misgiving, thinking of where he might be.

"It is better to fall into the hands of the living God than into the hands of men," she might have said, had she been called upon for an expression of her state of mind.

Upon her knees, with her chin upon the sill of the open window and her eyes upon the great silence where the moonlight lay, she asked to be forgiven for her hardness of heart, for her swift condemnation, for her poor, puny, disastrous efforts to set the world right. She knew now, in that moment of clear vision, that no man or woman is called to so great a task, but that what is asked of us all is merely and only the simple performance of each day's homely duty, by the doing of which, nevertheless, the whole fabric of human life and human achievement is ennobled and perfected.

With her chin resting upon the window-sill and her eyes, uplifted to the kindly, but impenetrable skies, Isla prayed. And then, leaving herself and her destiny for ever in the Hand which alone is capable of unravelling and setting in fair order human affairs, she crept to her bed to sleep off the overwhelming fatigue of the day.

Next morning there were many leave-takings in the Lodge of Creagh, and Diarmid and Margaret, whom the sorrows of their folk had drawn together in a touching unity, stood side by side on the step to watch Isla drive away with her uncle and aunt.

The young, small, frail woman, to whom their fealty was still due and who represented all that was left of the Glenogle Mackinnons, waved to them smilingly, bidding them be of good cheer until she should come back.

And when the last bend of the road was taken and the rumble of the departing wheels had died upon the air, the two old servants looked at each other a little pitifully, while tears rose in Margaret's eyes.

"She nefer will come pack, Diarmid, and you and me maype will grow old man and woman here in Creagh till they come to lay us in Balquhidder."

Diarmid answered never a word, but, later in the day, he delivered himself to Rosmead, who came on the swift feet of impatience to seek Isla.

"She hass gone away, sir, to Barras with Sir Thomas Mackinnon and his leddy, but whether it pe a long time or a short time afore she comes back I am not able to say."

"To Barras!" said Rosmead with musing in his eyes. "Tell me how she is, Diarmid. Did she seem sad?"

"Not so fery sad, considering sir," answered Diarmid, compelled, he knew not why, to lay bare his innermost thought to the man before him. "Me and Marget stood here, watchin' them, and she smiled as she went, and her face seemed to shine. But it iss a fery peetifu' thing, Maister Rosmead, for me and Marget to ken that soon the Mackinnons will be swept from the Glen, root and branch, and their fery name forgot."

"As long as she lives, Diarmid, that can never be," said Rosmead with the conviction of a man who knew. "Good-day, my man. Keep up your heart. There are new days coming for Achree and the name you love."

Before he turned away from the Lodge of Creagh, Rosmead climbed to the edge of the Moor of Silence and stood still for a moment on the very spot, though he knew it not, where Isla had stood with Neil Drummond but yesterday.

From where he stood he commanded a vast view, the Moor behind and beyond, and the winding road down Glenogle, with all the little hills huddling on its flanks, and widening out to the glory of Loch Earn.

Achree he could not see, but his eyes, as they ranged towards it, were filled with that vast tenderness which proclaims that the deeps of being are stirred.

Isla had gone away without message or sign, but that neither grieved nor troubled him. Some day, from out the silence, the sign would come, or he would himself know the day and the hour of her need of him.

And as he turned, with the westering light upon his face, he made his vow that if God should give him a son, Donald Rosmead Mackinnon he should be called, so that the name should not die for ever out of Glenogle and the Moor of Silence.

THE END

* * * * * * * *

Novels and Stories by

ANNIE S. SWAN

Between the Tides Young Blood The Fairweathers The Last of Their Race The Ivory God Rhona Keith The Forerunners Nancy Nicholson Meg Hamilton Mary Garth The Magic of Love Love Unlocks the Door Love's Miracle The Bridge Builders The Stepmother Christian's Cross Maid of the Isles MacLeod's Wife Love the Master Key Mask of Gold Shore Beyond Woven of the Wind

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON