CHAPTER IXTHE MESSENGERAs Malcolm strode up the Glenogle road a little later, well pleased with his day's achievement, he was overtaken by a smart drag and a pair of swift roan horses handled by Drummond of Garrion, whose sister Kitty was by his side.Neil drew up of course, and there was an odd look on his face as the greeting passed. Malcolm's manner was perfectly cool, even a little defiant. It would certainly have been better had Isla held her tongue, but he was not going to eat humble pie before that big, sheep-faced boy who had nothing but his money to recommend him.He took off his cap to Kitty, however, who smiled sweetly upon him."We're going to Creagh--no, not to call on you, Malcolm, so don't think it. We only wanted to know whether Isla had come back.""We returned last night," he answered. "Well I'll see you later.""Nonsense. You'll get up, Mackinnon," said Drummond so shortly that Kitty turned reproachful eyes on him.There were heaps of stories about Malcolm in the glens, but after all, nothing had been proved against him. And, anyhow, it was not the province of friendship to turn a cold shoulder."I'd walk, Malcolm, if I were you. Wait a moment, and I'll get down to convoy you.""No you don't, my lass," said Drummond firmly. "Get up, Mackinnon. The brutes won't stand--you see how fresh they are."Malcolm did not hesitate longer. It was three good miles to Creagh yet, and a man doesn't walk so easily after a good meal as before it. He swung himself to the back seat and settled himself so that he could talk to both, but chiefly into the ear of Kitty, whose looks, he decided, had improved."Neil's manners, as I dare say you have observed, have not improved of late," said Kitty airily. "He has been such a bear to-day that I am forced to the conclusion that he must have something on his conscience."Malcolm laughed."If it comes to that we've all got something on our consciences--more or less," he answered gaily. "Don't let it put you down on your luck too much, old chap. It's good policy to wait till the clouds roll by."As to what Neil thought of him Malcolm did not care a fig, but he wished to stand well with Kitty, having proved that women were generally a man's best friends and would champion him, often against their better judgment. It was a favourite jest with him that he would prefer a court martial of women to anything in this world, and that he would never despair of getting off.Drummond had told his sister only a judicious amount about Achree affairs, and it is to his credit that he had kept the fact of Malcolm's dismissal from the Army entirely to himself even when sometimes tempted to tell what he knew.It was for Isla's sake that he had kept silence--Isla, whom he loved with a dog-like fidelity that was capable of any sacrifice and any suffering in order to make her happy.Malcolm was unaware of Drummond's sentiments towards his sister, and if he had known them they would only have amused him. He despised Neil as a man of the world might despise and belittle a boy who had seen nothing of life. Neil, on his part, had the heartiest contempt for Malcolm Mackinnon, and cherished such an honest rage against him that it would have relieved him to have given him a good thrashing."You won't like Creagh, Malcolm," said Kitty sympathetically. "I can't help thinking that Isla was in too big a hurry to rush the Americans in. They were so frightfully keen on Achree that they would have waited your time.""That's what I think, but I don't grumble," said Malcolm. "I've been to lunch with them to-day, and they're quite decent--upon my word they are.""Been to lunch already, have you, Malcolm? You don't let the grass grow under your feet. And what do you think of them? I really think we must call, Neil. Why not this afternoon when we go down?""No," answered Neil shortly, "I'm not needing any truck with such folks. If they must swarm into Scotland, then, let them, but they'll get no encouragement from me.""Touch me if ye daur," whispered Malcolm with his eyes full of laughter.Kitty laughed out loud.On the way down she took the opportunity of asking Neil what had made him so disagreeable to Malcolm all the afternoon."I'm sure he's very nice and has greatly improved. His manner to his father is beautiful, I think--such a nice mixture of deference and devotion.""Fiddlesticks, Kitty!" said Drummond in his grumpiest tones. "You don't know what you're talking about.""Do you?" she asked saucily."It takes a man to know a man like Malcolm Mackinnon. I wonder how he can bear to loaf about idle--great big hulking fellow that he is!""Loaf about? But he's on leave, Neil, and he has had a hard year of skirmishing. You should hear him tell about it.""Don't want to--shouldn't believe it if I did," said Neil, biting his lip and conscious that he had very nearly let the cat out of the bag.He had not had an opportunity of private speech with Isla at Creagh, because he and his sister had found the Edens in the little drawing-room and had left them still there when they went away. The whole afternoon had been a disappointment, and when, as they neared the gate of Achree, Kitty had again ventured to suggest that they should pay a call he refused point-blank.It seemed as likely as not that Malcolm was to become a bone of contention in the Glen and that very soon there would be two factions--one that believed in him and another that discredited him in everything.Malcolm himself was the least concerned of them all.The weather continuing beautiful and spring-like, he went out early and stayed out late, and they saw very little indeed of him at Creagh.Isla now heard less of the news of the Glen, for it was a long walk down to Lochearn and her father seemed more than ever reluctant to let her out of his sight. These were rather trying days for Isla, because her father talked almost incessantly about Malcolm, praising him to the skies and predicting a glorious future for him.As the days went by and no letter or communication of any kind came from India or from the War Office, and as no intimation regarding Malcolm's withdrawal from the Army had been seen in any of the newspapers, Isla began to cherish the hope that they had heard the last of it. Of course Malcolm might have intercepted any that had been sent, but if he had done so he did not tell her. They saw little of each other and there was not much brotherly or sisterly confidence between them. They were indeed working at cross-purposes and, without knowing it, each was jealous of the other.Nobody would have been more surprised and indignant than Isla had anyone told her that she was jealous of Malcolm's frequent visits to Achree: yet that was the truth. Also, she was keenly disappointed that Rosmead, after all his considerate kindness at the beginning, had never made the smallest effort to see her again. She would not go to Achree unless she was specially invited. So she remained at Creagh, living out the dull and narrow days, her heart full of vague discontent and unrest and forebodings which she could not have put into words.Four weeks passed away--certainly the longest four weeks of Isla's life. She did not like Creagh though nothing on earth would have induced her to admit it. She missed all the cheery, pleasant gossip of the Glen and the little village, the daily intercourse with her own folk, the give and take of a social life which, if limited, was at least very sincere. Achree and Creagh were evidently two different places in the estimation of her circle, for nobody but the Edens and the Drummonds took the trouble to look her up, and even they did not come often. All the fun and all the social life apparently fell to Malcolm's share.She was thinking of all this one morning as she sauntered down to the gate to meet the post-gig. She was a little late, she found by the watch-bracelet on her arm, and wondered as she glanced down the long white line of the road, on which there was not a single moving object visible, whether she had missed David Bain.She had been over at the keeper's house about half a mile distant, inquiring after a woman who had had a new baby and, meeting the doctor from Comrie there, had stopped a little to talk with him. She had assured him that he need not call at Creagh, unless indeed he particularly wanted to see her father--as he had not been so well for years as he had been since they came up to live on the Moor.Presently she saw something in the distance--a man on horseback, rather a rare spectacle on the moorland road at that season of the year. She thought at first that it must be Neil Drummond, who was the only horseman that ever came to Creagh. But a nearer glance assured her that the figure was a heavier one than Neil's, and, besides, she did not recognize the horse, though she could see that it was a good one.She waited a few minutes longer, and as the horseman drew rapidly nearer she recognized the figure as that of Rosmead. This surprised her very much. Somehow, she had never imagined that an American man, though even a distinguished builder of bridges, would ride a horse and look so well on it.Having no doubt that he was coming to Creagh, she opened the gate and stood by the white post until he came up. She admired the ease with which he sat, proving thereby that he was no novice on a horse's back. He looked uncommonly well-pleased to see her, and before he reached the gate he saluted her and threw himself to the ground.Catching the reins over his arm, he took off his hat and kept it under his arm until she had given him her hand."It's a case of Mahomet coming to the mountain, Miss Mackinnon. I am here to-day on my mother's behalf and with a message from her.""Yes?" said Isla, and her smile was bright and very sweet.She had felt left out in the cold, and that feeling of neglect accounted for the little glow at her heart which had been kindled by the sincere cordiality of Rosmead's greeting."Do you know that she feels quite aggrieved," said he, "to think that she has been a month in Achree and that you have never called once to inquire or to make her acquaintance.""I am very sorry. I did not think--" replied Isla a little confusedly. "And since, as I understand, my brother has paid many calls at Achree I did not think it necessary that I should call. Besides, I am very much tied here on account of my father's health----""I understand that," he said gently."And it is a long way to Achree," she continued, "and we have no horse or trap of any kind. But I will come one day very soon and make my apologies. I hope that you are pretty comfortable in the house, and that your mother likes it.""She loves it. She has settled down, and from present signs I don't see that we shall ever get her out of it again," he answered with a laugh, watching at the game time the mobile face beside him.He thought it the sweetest face that he had ever seen and--almost he could have said--the dearest. Yet Hylton Rosmead had seen many fair women, among whom he might without doubt have made his choice."I am so glad," said Isla a little wistfully. "And your sisters--do they, too, like it?""They do. Glenogle and Lochearn in such a spring as this leave little, I think, to be desired in the way of winsomeness. I myself feel as if I belonged here, which, I dare say, you consider great presumption on my part.""Indeed no," said Isla, with a swift, kind glance. "I feel very glad to know that that is how you regard Achree.""I came with a message from my mother and also, I must confess, on my own account to tell you that I have to leave Scotland for a few months.""Oh!" said Isla, and her face unaccountably fell.But Rosmead was not yet sufficiently acquainted with the play of its expression to understand that his news had disappointed her. Neither was he vain enough to imagine that her expression had altered because of his announcement of his impending departure."Where are you going?" she asked a moment later."Back to America. The object for which I came to this country is accomplished, and I really have no excuse for remaining longer here.""Oh!" said Isla again, a little dully. "Somehow I imagined that you were going to settle in Scotland, though of course that was a very absurd supposition on my part.""Not so very absurd. It is what I should like to do--what I hope to do one day. But, in the meantime, I must not forget that I am a partner in an American business and that I am expected to go back with my report.""What report?""You have forgotten, of course, that I told you I was a bridge-builder. Why should you remember it?" he asked lightly. "I came over to meet the engineers and the contractors who have to do with your splendid bridges here, and in the fall I shall have to go down south, where my firm has undertaken to build one of the biggest cantilever bridges in the world.""Oh!" said Isla a third time. "And you will not come back?""I hope that I shall return later in the year--probably to spend Christmas with my mother and sisters.""They will remain here, then? You wish to extend the term of your tenancy of Achree? Do you remember it was to be for six months?""With the option of remaining for a year. That was made very clear, I think, at the beginning, and, as I said, my mother will not be easily ousted from Achree. She is of Scottish parentage, you know. Her mother was a Farquharson, so she imagines that she has a special claim on Scotland. Happily your brother does not mind the extension."A sort of chill fell on Isla at mention of Malcolm's name, though why she could not have told. She had no fear that he had not made himself pleasant or agreeable at Achree; but, somehow, disaster seemed to associate itself with his name. She feared to pursue the subject. But Rosmead, quite unaware of her feeling in the matter, none of the gossip of the Glen having reached his ears, went on quietly."We've had several long talks about it, and practically it is arranged that we take the place on a two years' lease.""You have arranged that with Malcolm!" she said a little faintly."Yes," said Rosmead. "He has been most kind about it. He tells me he has resigned his commission on account of his father's health but that he intends and hopes to get some estate management. I appreciate his kindness to us all the more on that account."Isla, who heard all this for the first time, felt a natural thrill of indignation because she had been kept in the dark."I don't see that there is so very much kindness," she said quickly. "You pay very handsomely for the house.""It is worth it," he said heartily. "The old Rosmead place in Virginia my mother has lent to her youngest sister, lately made a widow. She is looking after all the servants, and we have not the smallest anxiety about it, so you see, things have arranged themselves very nicely for us.""Your home is in Virginia, then?" said Isla in tones of deep interest, which flattered Rosmead not a little."Yes. My grandfather was a big planter there, and had many slaves. Of course the war changed all that, but the place remains the same. I should like you to see Virginia, Miss Mackinnon, and my old home. It is a beautiful place.""It seems odd that you should be so willing to leave it!""It had sad associations for my mother and also for my sister Vivien, who was married in the neighbourhood and was--and was--not very happy. But there--I have all this time been talking about myself, and not at all about you. Your father, I hear, is very well. I dare say, your brother's return has helped him greatly.""Yes, I think it has," said Isla, trying to be cordial as well as loyal. "And Creagh suits him. It is very high and clear up there, and he is able to potter about just as he likes. You will come in and see him? Even his mind is much stronger. Certainly he now grasps the fact of your residence at Achree, and, I am sure, he would like to make your acquaintance properly.""I should like to come in and see him, if I may," said Rosmead. "But before we go in will you promise to go sometimes to see my mother when I am gone? I don't know why I should ask this, but I do.""I shall be sure to go, Mr. Rosmead. But when do you leave Scotland?""Next Thursday. My boat sails from Liverpool on Saturday afternoon, and I have some business in London on the Friday.""I shall come before then, of course, and I am very sorry I have been so rude and unneighbourly," said Isla, and she meant what she said. "Do you mind walking round with me to the stable and putting your horse in? The accommodation is quite good, but there is no groom," she added with a small, pitiful smile which touched him inexpressibly.Her whole personality appealed to him. The grave, unimpressionable Hylton P. Rosmead, accounted by his colleagues one of the hardest-headed men of his time, was so moved by this woman, whom he had seen so few times, that he could have taken her in his arms there and then, and asked nothing better than to keep her for the rest of his life and hers.She was so sweetly natural and womanly, so altogether devoid of pretension that she appealed to every fibre in his being. He hated the artificiality of the women of his set--the smart women whom he had met in New York society and who were ready to make much of the "Bridge-builder," as they called him--and to pour the incense of their flattery upon him. But the atmosphere had always impressed him as being insincere, and he had often told his mother that if he ever married it would be in some very unexpected place. He knew now that he had found the place and the woman.All unconscious of what was passing in his mind, Isla led the way to the stables, stood by while he tied up his horse, and then walked back with him, pointing out the beauty of the situation and the incomparable view from the little plateau on which the house was built."Now I wonder whether David Bain has ever come. I suppose you saw nothing of him on the road, Mr. Rosmead?""Nothing. He was ahead of me, I am sure, because he is the most punctual person I have ever heard tell of. I have heard that in Glenogle they set their clocks by David."Isla passed into the house with a smile on her lips and, crossing the narrow hall, opened the door of the dining-room which her father used as a library and sitting-room.And there she stood just a moment as if frozen upon the threshold. Her father was not in his accustomed chair, but lay on the hearthrug, where he had evidently fallen with the page of an open letter grasped tightly in his hand.CHAPTER XTHE HOUSE OF WOEIsla sprang forward and knelt down in a silence that could be felt. The old man lay slightly on his side, and Rosmead, as he too knelt down, saw at once that all was over.Isla's white face and terrified eyes turned to him in swift appeal."Will you take your horse and ride quickly for Dr. Blair? I left him at the keeper's house at Rofallion. Any of them here will tell you where it is. And even if he is gone from there the people will know what direction he took."Rosmead rose to his feet, and on his face was a great and sad gentleness."I will go if you wish, my dear, but it is useless. He is dead."Isla sprang up, and her eyes flashed."Dead! How dare you say that? He can't be dead--it is impossible. He was quite well this morning--better than he has been for years. I told Dr. Blair so when he wished to come and see him this very morning. Oh, if only I had let him come!"Her hand on the shabby old bell-pull sent a hundred echoes through the house and brought Diarmid, shaking and apprehensive, to the door.Isla turned to him sharply."Come, Diarmid. The General has had a fit--or something. Help to lift him up, and carry him to his room. Will you, Mr. Rosmead? Oh, thank you very much. Then if you will ride for the doctor it will be the greatest service you can render."As they would have addressed themselves to their task she stooped and tried to release the sheet of paper from the fingers that held it like a vice. But the effort was useless. As she knelt there she was able to read the address on the one side, and, on the other, which she turned with a shaking finger, the signature of Colonel Martindale.Then she knew what had happened.She left the room and flew up the stairs to see that the bed was ready, and, as she heard Margaret Maclaren clucking to her handful of poultry at the kitchen door, she wondered how all the work and business of their little world could go on as before, while her life was over.The bed was straight and the fair linen sheet turned back when Rosmead and the serving-man appeared with their burden. Even then Isla noted the extreme gentleness and power displayed by Rosmead, and from that moment he seemed, as it were, to take over her case and to legislate for her.They laid the poor old General on his bed, and Rosmead very gently drew the lids over the staring eyes that seemed to have a great horror in them."Oh, go for the doctor--go quickly, for God's sake!" cried Isla--"or it will be too late.""It is too late now," he said.And, stepping to the toilet-table, he lifted the General's small shaving-glass that had been carried through many a campaign and laid it against his lips. There was not the faintest sign of a misty breath on it."It is the infallible sign, my dear. God help and comfort you! I will send your woman to you and then go after the doctor. It will be well that he should be here even if he can do nothing."Isla, now almost convinced that her father was indeed dead, did not cry. But Rosmead never forgot the despair of her face. She bent over the prostrate figure and once more essayed to remove the letter from the gripping fingers.Rosmead stepped forward to help her and, after a small effort, he succeeded in releasing it. She smoothed it out, folded it, and put it inside the bosom of her gown. Her face seemed to harden then till it became set like marble."I will never forgive Malcolm Mackinnon this!" she said under her breath, "never while I live."Rosmead, guessing some tragedy beneath, decently turned away and went down to get his horse from the stable. As he left the house the keeper appeared, having been instructed by Isla to call for some soup for his wife."The doctor, sir? Yess, he iss at my hoose whatefer. At least his bicycle iss there, and he iss calling at another hoose not far away. I can bring him?--yess, inside of ten minutes. I hope there iss nothing wrong at Creagh whatefer?""General Mackinnon has had a seizure of some kind," answered Rosmead. "Can you go as quickly on your feet as I on my horse?""Quicker. Forby, there iss no need," answered the man, and he was off like lightning across the moor.But in less than ten minutes' time he was back to say that the doctor had gone and that nobody knew the way he had taken.Then Rosmead ascended the stairs once more, to find that they were standing about helplessly, wringing their hands, while Isla, with the desolation of death on her face, was looking out of the window.He motioned the servants from the room, and went up to her, gently touching her arm."My dear," he said, and she did not even notice how he once more addressed her. "I am afraid we have missed the doctor. I will get him for you soon, but meanwhile I want you to grasp the fact that, even if he were here at this moment, there is nothing to be done. I have some knowledge of such things, and I have seen many die. It is all over, and, save for the pain to you, we ought to be glad that he suffers no more.""Suffer!" she cried shrilly. "You don't know--no one will ever know what he suffered just then."Unconsciously her hand touched the fold of her blouse where the letter lay. "He had a shock--yes, and it was the one thing to avoid. Oh, I have watched him all these years so that nothing came near him! But I was powerless against this evil thing that killed him at the last!"Rosmead made no answer, understanding that she was distraught and spoke freely of that which her normal self would not have so much as mentioned in his presence.His one concern was to get her out of the room, so that the last sad offices might be done and Mackinnon of Achree composed in the dignity of his last sleep. He managed it at last, for even with all his gentleness he was masterful. Then with his own hands he helped, guiding the tearful, but anxious and willing servants so that in a short time the death-chamber was prepared, the fair linen ready, and all done decently as it ought to be.When he got down to the library Isla was sitting by the table, with her elbows on it, staring into space. The expression on her face hurt him. It was not woebegone, nor yet was it grief-stricken. It was only hard like the nether millstone. He understood that he had come within touch of the tragedy of these broken lives, but not an atom of curiosity stirred in him. His only concern was for her.She looked round with a little shivering breath, and her lips essayed to move."I too seem to be stricken! I wish only one thing at this moment, Mr. Rosmead--that I could be lying dead beside my father.""Yes, yes, I understand. I was only fifteen when my father died--through a gun accident that might have been averted, and I remember the horror of it yet. But yours was an old man and full of years and honours. You should see him now! He reminds me of the shock of corn fully ripe. You must think of how he was beloved in all the glens, and how, after his long service, he has received his crown from the King."He spoke quite simply, and the hardness on Isla's face slightly relaxed."How kind you are! I shall never forget it!""I have done nothing that the merest stranger might not have done better," he made answer. "What I feel now is that I dare not leave you here alone. If you could send some one down to Lochearn--or if you know where your brother is I will find him for you. It is imperative that you should not be left here alone.""I don't know where he is, and he shall not come in here!" she cried a little wildly. "You don't understand! Nobody understands except me, but he must not come in here."Rosmead did not know what to say, for tragedy was in the air."Come," he said gently, laying a slightly compelling hand on her arm. "Let me take you upstairs. It will do you good. He looks so beautiful and so gloriously at rest. If only you will let your mind dwell on that, half the bitterness will be gone--on that and on the fact of your long and beautiful devotion to him, which has been the wonder of all the glens."Rosmead hardly knew himself, and certainly those who knew only one side of Peter Rosmead would have been amazed to hear him now.Isla obeyed him without the smallest demur, and when she entered the room with the drawn blinds, and looked at the still figure on the bed with the majesty of death on the noble face her tears began to flow. And for that Rosmead thanked God.She was like a little child in his hands then, begging him not to leave her; and his tenderness, his forethought, his encompassing care were like those of a kind elder brother.But that came to an end with the sudden, swift arrival of some fresh person at the door and with the sound of Malcolm's loud--somewhat aggressive--voice, calling his sister by name.Rosmead stood aside while she walked steadily from the room, and he very heartily wished that it were possible for him to escape by some back staircase. He had no desire to witness what he felt must come.Isla sped swiftly down the stairs, and on the downmost step she paused and pointed an accusing finger at her brother."Murderer!" she said. "Don't come a step farther. You have no right in this house, which you have destroyed!"Malcolm looked thunder-struck, and the sight of Rosmead a few steps higher up the stair did not help to lessen the mystery."Why, what has happened, and why is Mr. Rosmead here? What is it?" he demanded peremptorily.Rosmead hastened past them and went out by the door without a word. He knew that the time had come for him to go--that with what now passed in the Lodge of Creagh between the brother and sister no stranger might intermeddle. But he left the woman whom he had learned to love--left her with a pang.Rosmead was no fool, and he guessed that the letter that had been in the General's dead hand must, in some way, have concerned his son, and that, whatever news it contained, it was the shock of it that had killed him.This also Isla knew, and Malcolm would have to answer to his sister, to his own conscience, and to his Maker for his sin.Rosmead's heart was heavy as he took his horse from the queer little stable of Creagh, and, mounting, rode slowly down Glenogle. The mystery of life, its awful suffering--so much of it preventible--oppressed his healthy mind like a nightmare. And always it was the innocent and the good who had to bear the full brunt.As he rode through the clear beauty of the summer morning he took a vow that he would do what he could to make up to Isla Mackinnon--that if she would permit him he would devote his whole life to making her happy, to effacing the memory of the bitterness that her young life had known.Only he must not be in too much haste, because the quick pride of her would resent any assumption of right on his part. Isla must be slowly and laboriously wooed. But how well worth the winning! Rosmead's outlook upon life had undergone a swift change, and now it was bounded east, west, north, and south, by the deep quiet eyes and the beautiful face of one woman.The love that had come to him late would be the great passion of his life--a passion such as few men know. He had kept himself singularly pure and wholly detached from women. His capacity for affection had never been dissipated by lighter loves. He brought a virgin heart to lay at the feet of the woman he loved. And, in spite of the sorrow and the woe to which he had been a witness, life promised fair to Peter Rosmead that summer morning as he rode through Glenogle and watched the sheen of the sun upon hill and water and heard the birds singing their heart out in the crystal clearness of the upper air.He would go to America and attend with a single mind to his business there, leaving the dear woman in peace. Then, when he returned at Christmas, he would see. His heart would tell him then whether it was time to speak. Few misgivings were his. He believed that Isla Mackinnon was the woman that God had given to him and that she had been kept for him through all the years of his strenuous young manhood, and that for her dear sake he had been able to live without blame and without reproach.For that, above all else, he gave God thanks in his heart.Meanwhile, in the Lodge on the edge of the Moor of Creagh the storm rose and raged. Malcolm, a little stupefied, kept demanding what had happened."He is dead!" cried Isla, in the shrill, hard tone that had no kinship with that of her usually sweet low voice. "And the thing that killed him was the letter from India--Colonel Martindale's version of the story.""Give it to me!" said Malcolm, with an air almost of menace as he stepped to her side."No, I will not," she answered clearly. "It is not yours. It was father's, and now it is mine. To think that after all our watching, it should have fallen into his hands at last!"Malcolm, very white and haggard now, moved with a step that was very unsteady into the library, Isla following, for it suddenly dawned upon her that it was unseemly to wrangle there within a step of the chamber of death."Tell me what has happened," he said hoarsely. "Surely you will not deny me the right to know.""There it very little to tell," said Isla drearily. "I went out early, and before going to meet David Bain, I went to the keeper's house at Rofallion to ask for Mrs. Dugid. Then while I was waiting at the gate for David Mr. Rosmead came up.""And David had delivered the letters, I suppose, while you were at Rofallion?""Yes, of course, and father opened that one, and, though he might have looked at a dozen others without comprehending their meaning, he knew the meaning of that one at once," she said.And her face set again like the nether millstone.She had no pity for Malcolm, she did not even in that moment of awful bitterness give him credit for one spark of decent feeling. She hardly observed that he was trembling like an aspen and that his face had grown haggard about the mouth, like that of an old man."Isla, I want that letter. I must have it," he said in a low voice.She heard him as she heard him not, and his tone became more desperate."Did you read it, Isla?""No.""Will you read it?""No.""Then give it to me.""Oh, what does it matter? The fire is the place for it--the very heart of it, where it will be consumed quickly, now that it has done its deadly work," she said drearily "Do you understand what has happened, Malcolm? Our father is dead, and it is you who have killed him, just as surely as if you had put a bullet into him.""For God's sake, hold your tongue, Isla! You would drive a man to the edge of despair.""What about me?" she cried in a kind of frenzy, throwing her self-control to the winds. "It is all of self you speak. Don't you understand that it is a martyrdom and nothing else that I have suffered in the last five--no, in the last ten years, ever since I was able to know the meaning of the things that happened? Through you our souls, our hearts, and sometimes our bodies have been starved in Achree, and the old place has been suffered to sink into the dust, and has finally passed into the hands of strangers. All this would not have mattered if only you had been good and brave and a little like what you ought to have been. We could have borne poverty with a smile. But it was your misdeeds, your squandering of Achree that poisoned existence for him until slowly his mind gave way. And I had to stand by and see it and be glad of it, because in that way he suffered less. But I suffered more. If there is a God in heaven He must judge this day between you and me, Malcolm Mackinnon.""For God's sake Isla, hold your tongue!" he repeated, but his voice sounded weak and almost faint.He was no coward in some directions, but the look on his sister's face was awful to see and her words seared themselves upon his brain. He had no idea until now of the red-hot fires of passion glowing beneath her quiet exterior. But now he knew, and the revelation never afterwards passed from his remembrance."I must speak just this once, for we are going to part, Malcolm; now the last bond between us is snapped. I will never forgive you. You broke my father's heart, and mine is in the dust, where it will lie till the end. I hope that you are very proud of your work."He turned away with a deep groan and covered his face with his hands."Now you are the Laird of Achree," she continued, "and there is none to hinder you from making its devastation complete. As for me, I will pass away from Glenogle and never come near it any more."He turned to her then, and his eyes looked for a moment as hers sometimes had done, full of a most wistful appeal."Hold hard, Isla! Don't you think I've had enough? I don't want to justify myself. I admit that the letter gave the shock, and that is punishment enough for me. Don't rub it in. Far less has sent a man to the lower-most hell."She did not seem to comprehend the words--or even to hear them.She appeared suddenly to be possessed by a new idea, and, undoing the pearl button of her blouse, she drew forth the letter and held it out."Take it. There is no use for me to keep it. I don't want to read it. It is yours."She opened the door, passed him by, and went, bare-headed, into the drowsy sunshine, and a lark in the clear blue of the sky seemed suddenly to mock her with his wealth of full-throated song. She walked blindly, yet her feet guided her away to the great spaces of the Moor of Creagh, where she could be alone under the clear canopy of heaven and where the messengers of the Unseen were free to comfort her.Malcolm, still shaky and trembling, looked about with the air of a man who does not know which way to turn. Then he sat him down and braced himself for the effort of reading the letter which had fallen like the crack of doom upon the old man's heart.It was such a letter as one true friend might write to another, carefully worded so that it would not inflict any unnecessary pain. It was a letter which had cost its writer several sleepless nights--a letter of duty and friendship for a man whom he had never met, but whose name was still honoured in the service that he had adorned.Had the Colonel known of the old man's state of health that letter would never have been written. But it told the truth--the whole truth, without varnish or embroidery, in the simple language which is all that a soldier has at his command.Malcolm Mackinnon set his teeth as he read it, and surely in that awful moment he expiated part at least of his many sins.After what seemed a long, long time he picked himself up heavily, crushed the letter in his hand, and threw it into the fire, where he watched it caught by a greedy flame and consumed to the uttermost edge.Then he left the room, passed by, unseeing, the doddering Diarmid in the hall, and slowly mounted the narrow stairs.He did not pause or falter at the door of the chamber of death, but opened it swiftly, closed it again, and walked to the side of the bed. There, for a moment, he stood in silence. Then Diarmid, listening below, heard a cry which he never forgot. It was that of a soul in an anguish which cannot be uttered."Forgive!" was the only word that fell brokenly from his lips as he knelt, sobbing by the bed, and laid his aching and throbbing head on the snow-white gloss of the coverlet.The dead answered not, nor made any sign. But the peace upon the beautiful old face was that of one who has passed over, and who understands.
CHAPTER IX
THE MESSENGER
As Malcolm strode up the Glenogle road a little later, well pleased with his day's achievement, he was overtaken by a smart drag and a pair of swift roan horses handled by Drummond of Garrion, whose sister Kitty was by his side.
Neil drew up of course, and there was an odd look on his face as the greeting passed. Malcolm's manner was perfectly cool, even a little defiant. It would certainly have been better had Isla held her tongue, but he was not going to eat humble pie before that big, sheep-faced boy who had nothing but his money to recommend him.
He took off his cap to Kitty, however, who smiled sweetly upon him.
"We're going to Creagh--no, not to call on you, Malcolm, so don't think it. We only wanted to know whether Isla had come back."
"We returned last night," he answered. "Well I'll see you later."
"Nonsense. You'll get up, Mackinnon," said Drummond so shortly that Kitty turned reproachful eyes on him.
There were heaps of stories about Malcolm in the glens, but after all, nothing had been proved against him. And, anyhow, it was not the province of friendship to turn a cold shoulder.
"I'd walk, Malcolm, if I were you. Wait a moment, and I'll get down to convoy you."
"No you don't, my lass," said Drummond firmly. "Get up, Mackinnon. The brutes won't stand--you see how fresh they are."
Malcolm did not hesitate longer. It was three good miles to Creagh yet, and a man doesn't walk so easily after a good meal as before it. He swung himself to the back seat and settled himself so that he could talk to both, but chiefly into the ear of Kitty, whose looks, he decided, had improved.
"Neil's manners, as I dare say you have observed, have not improved of late," said Kitty airily. "He has been such a bear to-day that I am forced to the conclusion that he must have something on his conscience."
Malcolm laughed.
"If it comes to that we've all got something on our consciences--more or less," he answered gaily. "Don't let it put you down on your luck too much, old chap. It's good policy to wait till the clouds roll by."
As to what Neil thought of him Malcolm did not care a fig, but he wished to stand well with Kitty, having proved that women were generally a man's best friends and would champion him, often against their better judgment. It was a favourite jest with him that he would prefer a court martial of women to anything in this world, and that he would never despair of getting off.
Drummond had told his sister only a judicious amount about Achree affairs, and it is to his credit that he had kept the fact of Malcolm's dismissal from the Army entirely to himself even when sometimes tempted to tell what he knew.
It was for Isla's sake that he had kept silence--Isla, whom he loved with a dog-like fidelity that was capable of any sacrifice and any suffering in order to make her happy.
Malcolm was unaware of Drummond's sentiments towards his sister, and if he had known them they would only have amused him. He despised Neil as a man of the world might despise and belittle a boy who had seen nothing of life. Neil, on his part, had the heartiest contempt for Malcolm Mackinnon, and cherished such an honest rage against him that it would have relieved him to have given him a good thrashing.
"You won't like Creagh, Malcolm," said Kitty sympathetically. "I can't help thinking that Isla was in too big a hurry to rush the Americans in. They were so frightfully keen on Achree that they would have waited your time."
"That's what I think, but I don't grumble," said Malcolm. "I've been to lunch with them to-day, and they're quite decent--upon my word they are."
"Been to lunch already, have you, Malcolm? You don't let the grass grow under your feet. And what do you think of them? I really think we must call, Neil. Why not this afternoon when we go down?"
"No," answered Neil shortly, "I'm not needing any truck with such folks. If they must swarm into Scotland, then, let them, but they'll get no encouragement from me."
"Touch me if ye daur," whispered Malcolm with his eyes full of laughter.
Kitty laughed out loud.
On the way down she took the opportunity of asking Neil what had made him so disagreeable to Malcolm all the afternoon.
"I'm sure he's very nice and has greatly improved. His manner to his father is beautiful, I think--such a nice mixture of deference and devotion."
"Fiddlesticks, Kitty!" said Drummond in his grumpiest tones. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Do you?" she asked saucily.
"It takes a man to know a man like Malcolm Mackinnon. I wonder how he can bear to loaf about idle--great big hulking fellow that he is!"
"Loaf about? But he's on leave, Neil, and he has had a hard year of skirmishing. You should hear him tell about it."
"Don't want to--shouldn't believe it if I did," said Neil, biting his lip and conscious that he had very nearly let the cat out of the bag.
He had not had an opportunity of private speech with Isla at Creagh, because he and his sister had found the Edens in the little drawing-room and had left them still there when they went away. The whole afternoon had been a disappointment, and when, as they neared the gate of Achree, Kitty had again ventured to suggest that they should pay a call he refused point-blank.
It seemed as likely as not that Malcolm was to become a bone of contention in the Glen and that very soon there would be two factions--one that believed in him and another that discredited him in everything.
Malcolm himself was the least concerned of them all.
The weather continuing beautiful and spring-like, he went out early and stayed out late, and they saw very little indeed of him at Creagh.
Isla now heard less of the news of the Glen, for it was a long walk down to Lochearn and her father seemed more than ever reluctant to let her out of his sight. These were rather trying days for Isla, because her father talked almost incessantly about Malcolm, praising him to the skies and predicting a glorious future for him.
As the days went by and no letter or communication of any kind came from India or from the War Office, and as no intimation regarding Malcolm's withdrawal from the Army had been seen in any of the newspapers, Isla began to cherish the hope that they had heard the last of it. Of course Malcolm might have intercepted any that had been sent, but if he had done so he did not tell her. They saw little of each other and there was not much brotherly or sisterly confidence between them. They were indeed working at cross-purposes and, without knowing it, each was jealous of the other.
Nobody would have been more surprised and indignant than Isla had anyone told her that she was jealous of Malcolm's frequent visits to Achree: yet that was the truth. Also, she was keenly disappointed that Rosmead, after all his considerate kindness at the beginning, had never made the smallest effort to see her again. She would not go to Achree unless she was specially invited. So she remained at Creagh, living out the dull and narrow days, her heart full of vague discontent and unrest and forebodings which she could not have put into words.
Four weeks passed away--certainly the longest four weeks of Isla's life. She did not like Creagh though nothing on earth would have induced her to admit it. She missed all the cheery, pleasant gossip of the Glen and the little village, the daily intercourse with her own folk, the give and take of a social life which, if limited, was at least very sincere. Achree and Creagh were evidently two different places in the estimation of her circle, for nobody but the Edens and the Drummonds took the trouble to look her up, and even they did not come often. All the fun and all the social life apparently fell to Malcolm's share.
She was thinking of all this one morning as she sauntered down to the gate to meet the post-gig. She was a little late, she found by the watch-bracelet on her arm, and wondered as she glanced down the long white line of the road, on which there was not a single moving object visible, whether she had missed David Bain.
She had been over at the keeper's house about half a mile distant, inquiring after a woman who had had a new baby and, meeting the doctor from Comrie there, had stopped a little to talk with him. She had assured him that he need not call at Creagh, unless indeed he particularly wanted to see her father--as he had not been so well for years as he had been since they came up to live on the Moor.
Presently she saw something in the distance--a man on horseback, rather a rare spectacle on the moorland road at that season of the year. She thought at first that it must be Neil Drummond, who was the only horseman that ever came to Creagh. But a nearer glance assured her that the figure was a heavier one than Neil's, and, besides, she did not recognize the horse, though she could see that it was a good one.
She waited a few minutes longer, and as the horseman drew rapidly nearer she recognized the figure as that of Rosmead. This surprised her very much. Somehow, she had never imagined that an American man, though even a distinguished builder of bridges, would ride a horse and look so well on it.
Having no doubt that he was coming to Creagh, she opened the gate and stood by the white post until he came up. She admired the ease with which he sat, proving thereby that he was no novice on a horse's back. He looked uncommonly well-pleased to see her, and before he reached the gate he saluted her and threw himself to the ground.
Catching the reins over his arm, he took off his hat and kept it under his arm until she had given him her hand.
"It's a case of Mahomet coming to the mountain, Miss Mackinnon. I am here to-day on my mother's behalf and with a message from her."
"Yes?" said Isla, and her smile was bright and very sweet.
She had felt left out in the cold, and that feeling of neglect accounted for the little glow at her heart which had been kindled by the sincere cordiality of Rosmead's greeting.
"Do you know that she feels quite aggrieved," said he, "to think that she has been a month in Achree and that you have never called once to inquire or to make her acquaintance."
"I am very sorry. I did not think--" replied Isla a little confusedly. "And since, as I understand, my brother has paid many calls at Achree I did not think it necessary that I should call. Besides, I am very much tied here on account of my father's health----"
"I understand that," he said gently.
"And it is a long way to Achree," she continued, "and we have no horse or trap of any kind. But I will come one day very soon and make my apologies. I hope that you are pretty comfortable in the house, and that your mother likes it."
"She loves it. She has settled down, and from present signs I don't see that we shall ever get her out of it again," he answered with a laugh, watching at the game time the mobile face beside him.
He thought it the sweetest face that he had ever seen and--almost he could have said--the dearest. Yet Hylton Rosmead had seen many fair women, among whom he might without doubt have made his choice.
"I am so glad," said Isla a little wistfully. "And your sisters--do they, too, like it?"
"They do. Glenogle and Lochearn in such a spring as this leave little, I think, to be desired in the way of winsomeness. I myself feel as if I belonged here, which, I dare say, you consider great presumption on my part."
"Indeed no," said Isla, with a swift, kind glance. "I feel very glad to know that that is how you regard Achree."
"I came with a message from my mother and also, I must confess, on my own account to tell you that I have to leave Scotland for a few months."
"Oh!" said Isla, and her face unaccountably fell.
But Rosmead was not yet sufficiently acquainted with the play of its expression to understand that his news had disappointed her. Neither was he vain enough to imagine that her expression had altered because of his announcement of his impending departure.
"Where are you going?" she asked a moment later.
"Back to America. The object for which I came to this country is accomplished, and I really have no excuse for remaining longer here."
"Oh!" said Isla again, a little dully. "Somehow I imagined that you were going to settle in Scotland, though of course that was a very absurd supposition on my part."
"Not so very absurd. It is what I should like to do--what I hope to do one day. But, in the meantime, I must not forget that I am a partner in an American business and that I am expected to go back with my report."
"What report?"
"You have forgotten, of course, that I told you I was a bridge-builder. Why should you remember it?" he asked lightly. "I came over to meet the engineers and the contractors who have to do with your splendid bridges here, and in the fall I shall have to go down south, where my firm has undertaken to build one of the biggest cantilever bridges in the world."
"Oh!" said Isla a third time. "And you will not come back?"
"I hope that I shall return later in the year--probably to spend Christmas with my mother and sisters."
"They will remain here, then? You wish to extend the term of your tenancy of Achree? Do you remember it was to be for six months?"
"With the option of remaining for a year. That was made very clear, I think, at the beginning, and, as I said, my mother will not be easily ousted from Achree. She is of Scottish parentage, you know. Her mother was a Farquharson, so she imagines that she has a special claim on Scotland. Happily your brother does not mind the extension."
A sort of chill fell on Isla at mention of Malcolm's name, though why she could not have told. She had no fear that he had not made himself pleasant or agreeable at Achree; but, somehow, disaster seemed to associate itself with his name. She feared to pursue the subject. But Rosmead, quite unaware of her feeling in the matter, none of the gossip of the Glen having reached his ears, went on quietly.
"We've had several long talks about it, and practically it is arranged that we take the place on a two years' lease."
"You have arranged that with Malcolm!" she said a little faintly.
"Yes," said Rosmead. "He has been most kind about it. He tells me he has resigned his commission on account of his father's health but that he intends and hopes to get some estate management. I appreciate his kindness to us all the more on that account."
Isla, who heard all this for the first time, felt a natural thrill of indignation because she had been kept in the dark.
"I don't see that there is so very much kindness," she said quickly. "You pay very handsomely for the house."
"It is worth it," he said heartily. "The old Rosmead place in Virginia my mother has lent to her youngest sister, lately made a widow. She is looking after all the servants, and we have not the smallest anxiety about it, so you see, things have arranged themselves very nicely for us."
"Your home is in Virginia, then?" said Isla in tones of deep interest, which flattered Rosmead not a little.
"Yes. My grandfather was a big planter there, and had many slaves. Of course the war changed all that, but the place remains the same. I should like you to see Virginia, Miss Mackinnon, and my old home. It is a beautiful place."
"It seems odd that you should be so willing to leave it!"
"It had sad associations for my mother and also for my sister Vivien, who was married in the neighbourhood and was--and was--not very happy. But there--I have all this time been talking about myself, and not at all about you. Your father, I hear, is very well. I dare say, your brother's return has helped him greatly."
"Yes, I think it has," said Isla, trying to be cordial as well as loyal. "And Creagh suits him. It is very high and clear up there, and he is able to potter about just as he likes. You will come in and see him? Even his mind is much stronger. Certainly he now grasps the fact of your residence at Achree, and, I am sure, he would like to make your acquaintance properly."
"I should like to come in and see him, if I may," said Rosmead. "But before we go in will you promise to go sometimes to see my mother when I am gone? I don't know why I should ask this, but I do."
"I shall be sure to go, Mr. Rosmead. But when do you leave Scotland?"
"Next Thursday. My boat sails from Liverpool on Saturday afternoon, and I have some business in London on the Friday."
"I shall come before then, of course, and I am very sorry I have been so rude and unneighbourly," said Isla, and she meant what she said. "Do you mind walking round with me to the stable and putting your horse in? The accommodation is quite good, but there is no groom," she added with a small, pitiful smile which touched him inexpressibly.
Her whole personality appealed to him. The grave, unimpressionable Hylton P. Rosmead, accounted by his colleagues one of the hardest-headed men of his time, was so moved by this woman, whom he had seen so few times, that he could have taken her in his arms there and then, and asked nothing better than to keep her for the rest of his life and hers.
She was so sweetly natural and womanly, so altogether devoid of pretension that she appealed to every fibre in his being. He hated the artificiality of the women of his set--the smart women whom he had met in New York society and who were ready to make much of the "Bridge-builder," as they called him--and to pour the incense of their flattery upon him. But the atmosphere had always impressed him as being insincere, and he had often told his mother that if he ever married it would be in some very unexpected place. He knew now that he had found the place and the woman.
All unconscious of what was passing in his mind, Isla led the way to the stables, stood by while he tied up his horse, and then walked back with him, pointing out the beauty of the situation and the incomparable view from the little plateau on which the house was built.
"Now I wonder whether David Bain has ever come. I suppose you saw nothing of him on the road, Mr. Rosmead?"
"Nothing. He was ahead of me, I am sure, because he is the most punctual person I have ever heard tell of. I have heard that in Glenogle they set their clocks by David."
Isla passed into the house with a smile on her lips and, crossing the narrow hall, opened the door of the dining-room which her father used as a library and sitting-room.
And there she stood just a moment as if frozen upon the threshold. Her father was not in his accustomed chair, but lay on the hearthrug, where he had evidently fallen with the page of an open letter grasped tightly in his hand.
CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE OF WOE
Isla sprang forward and knelt down in a silence that could be felt. The old man lay slightly on his side, and Rosmead, as he too knelt down, saw at once that all was over.
Isla's white face and terrified eyes turned to him in swift appeal.
"Will you take your horse and ride quickly for Dr. Blair? I left him at the keeper's house at Rofallion. Any of them here will tell you where it is. And even if he is gone from there the people will know what direction he took."
Rosmead rose to his feet, and on his face was a great and sad gentleness.
"I will go if you wish, my dear, but it is useless. He is dead."
Isla sprang up, and her eyes flashed.
"Dead! How dare you say that? He can't be dead--it is impossible. He was quite well this morning--better than he has been for years. I told Dr. Blair so when he wished to come and see him this very morning. Oh, if only I had let him come!"
Her hand on the shabby old bell-pull sent a hundred echoes through the house and brought Diarmid, shaking and apprehensive, to the door.
Isla turned to him sharply.
"Come, Diarmid. The General has had a fit--or something. Help to lift him up, and carry him to his room. Will you, Mr. Rosmead? Oh, thank you very much. Then if you will ride for the doctor it will be the greatest service you can render."
As they would have addressed themselves to their task she stooped and tried to release the sheet of paper from the fingers that held it like a vice. But the effort was useless. As she knelt there she was able to read the address on the one side, and, on the other, which she turned with a shaking finger, the signature of Colonel Martindale.
Then she knew what had happened.
She left the room and flew up the stairs to see that the bed was ready, and, as she heard Margaret Maclaren clucking to her handful of poultry at the kitchen door, she wondered how all the work and business of their little world could go on as before, while her life was over.
The bed was straight and the fair linen sheet turned back when Rosmead and the serving-man appeared with their burden. Even then Isla noted the extreme gentleness and power displayed by Rosmead, and from that moment he seemed, as it were, to take over her case and to legislate for her.
They laid the poor old General on his bed, and Rosmead very gently drew the lids over the staring eyes that seemed to have a great horror in them.
"Oh, go for the doctor--go quickly, for God's sake!" cried Isla--"or it will be too late."
"It is too late now," he said.
And, stepping to the toilet-table, he lifted the General's small shaving-glass that had been carried through many a campaign and laid it against his lips. There was not the faintest sign of a misty breath on it.
"It is the infallible sign, my dear. God help and comfort you! I will send your woman to you and then go after the doctor. It will be well that he should be here even if he can do nothing."
Isla, now almost convinced that her father was indeed dead, did not cry. But Rosmead never forgot the despair of her face. She bent over the prostrate figure and once more essayed to remove the letter from the gripping fingers.
Rosmead stepped forward to help her and, after a small effort, he succeeded in releasing it. She smoothed it out, folded it, and put it inside the bosom of her gown. Her face seemed to harden then till it became set like marble.
"I will never forgive Malcolm Mackinnon this!" she said under her breath, "never while I live."
Rosmead, guessing some tragedy beneath, decently turned away and went down to get his horse from the stable. As he left the house the keeper appeared, having been instructed by Isla to call for some soup for his wife.
"The doctor, sir? Yess, he iss at my hoose whatefer. At least his bicycle iss there, and he iss calling at another hoose not far away. I can bring him?--yess, inside of ten minutes. I hope there iss nothing wrong at Creagh whatefer?"
"General Mackinnon has had a seizure of some kind," answered Rosmead. "Can you go as quickly on your feet as I on my horse?"
"Quicker. Forby, there iss no need," answered the man, and he was off like lightning across the moor.
But in less than ten minutes' time he was back to say that the doctor had gone and that nobody knew the way he had taken.
Then Rosmead ascended the stairs once more, to find that they were standing about helplessly, wringing their hands, while Isla, with the desolation of death on her face, was looking out of the window.
He motioned the servants from the room, and went up to her, gently touching her arm.
"My dear," he said, and she did not even notice how he once more addressed her. "I am afraid we have missed the doctor. I will get him for you soon, but meanwhile I want you to grasp the fact that, even if he were here at this moment, there is nothing to be done. I have some knowledge of such things, and I have seen many die. It is all over, and, save for the pain to you, we ought to be glad that he suffers no more."
"Suffer!" she cried shrilly. "You don't know--no one will ever know what he suffered just then."
Unconsciously her hand touched the fold of her blouse where the letter lay. "He had a shock--yes, and it was the one thing to avoid. Oh, I have watched him all these years so that nothing came near him! But I was powerless against this evil thing that killed him at the last!"
Rosmead made no answer, understanding that she was distraught and spoke freely of that which her normal self would not have so much as mentioned in his presence.
His one concern was to get her out of the room, so that the last sad offices might be done and Mackinnon of Achree composed in the dignity of his last sleep. He managed it at last, for even with all his gentleness he was masterful. Then with his own hands he helped, guiding the tearful, but anxious and willing servants so that in a short time the death-chamber was prepared, the fair linen ready, and all done decently as it ought to be.
When he got down to the library Isla was sitting by the table, with her elbows on it, staring into space. The expression on her face hurt him. It was not woebegone, nor yet was it grief-stricken. It was only hard like the nether millstone. He understood that he had come within touch of the tragedy of these broken lives, but not an atom of curiosity stirred in him. His only concern was for her.
She looked round with a little shivering breath, and her lips essayed to move.
"I too seem to be stricken! I wish only one thing at this moment, Mr. Rosmead--that I could be lying dead beside my father."
"Yes, yes, I understand. I was only fifteen when my father died--through a gun accident that might have been averted, and I remember the horror of it yet. But yours was an old man and full of years and honours. You should see him now! He reminds me of the shock of corn fully ripe. You must think of how he was beloved in all the glens, and how, after his long service, he has received his crown from the King."
He spoke quite simply, and the hardness on Isla's face slightly relaxed.
"How kind you are! I shall never forget it!"
"I have done nothing that the merest stranger might not have done better," he made answer. "What I feel now is that I dare not leave you here alone. If you could send some one down to Lochearn--or if you know where your brother is I will find him for you. It is imperative that you should not be left here alone."
"I don't know where he is, and he shall not come in here!" she cried a little wildly. "You don't understand! Nobody understands except me, but he must not come in here."
Rosmead did not know what to say, for tragedy was in the air.
"Come," he said gently, laying a slightly compelling hand on her arm. "Let me take you upstairs. It will do you good. He looks so beautiful and so gloriously at rest. If only you will let your mind dwell on that, half the bitterness will be gone--on that and on the fact of your long and beautiful devotion to him, which has been the wonder of all the glens."
Rosmead hardly knew himself, and certainly those who knew only one side of Peter Rosmead would have been amazed to hear him now.
Isla obeyed him without the smallest demur, and when she entered the room with the drawn blinds, and looked at the still figure on the bed with the majesty of death on the noble face her tears began to flow. And for that Rosmead thanked God.
She was like a little child in his hands then, begging him not to leave her; and his tenderness, his forethought, his encompassing care were like those of a kind elder brother.
But that came to an end with the sudden, swift arrival of some fresh person at the door and with the sound of Malcolm's loud--somewhat aggressive--voice, calling his sister by name.
Rosmead stood aside while she walked steadily from the room, and he very heartily wished that it were possible for him to escape by some back staircase. He had no desire to witness what he felt must come.
Isla sped swiftly down the stairs, and on the downmost step she paused and pointed an accusing finger at her brother.
"Murderer!" she said. "Don't come a step farther. You have no right in this house, which you have destroyed!"
Malcolm looked thunder-struck, and the sight of Rosmead a few steps higher up the stair did not help to lessen the mystery.
"Why, what has happened, and why is Mr. Rosmead here? What is it?" he demanded peremptorily.
Rosmead hastened past them and went out by the door without a word. He knew that the time had come for him to go--that with what now passed in the Lodge of Creagh between the brother and sister no stranger might intermeddle. But he left the woman whom he had learned to love--left her with a pang.
Rosmead was no fool, and he guessed that the letter that had been in the General's dead hand must, in some way, have concerned his son, and that, whatever news it contained, it was the shock of it that had killed him.
This also Isla knew, and Malcolm would have to answer to his sister, to his own conscience, and to his Maker for his sin.
Rosmead's heart was heavy as he took his horse from the queer little stable of Creagh, and, mounting, rode slowly down Glenogle. The mystery of life, its awful suffering--so much of it preventible--oppressed his healthy mind like a nightmare. And always it was the innocent and the good who had to bear the full brunt.
As he rode through the clear beauty of the summer morning he took a vow that he would do what he could to make up to Isla Mackinnon--that if she would permit him he would devote his whole life to making her happy, to effacing the memory of the bitterness that her young life had known.
Only he must not be in too much haste, because the quick pride of her would resent any assumption of right on his part. Isla must be slowly and laboriously wooed. But how well worth the winning! Rosmead's outlook upon life had undergone a swift change, and now it was bounded east, west, north, and south, by the deep quiet eyes and the beautiful face of one woman.
The love that had come to him late would be the great passion of his life--a passion such as few men know. He had kept himself singularly pure and wholly detached from women. His capacity for affection had never been dissipated by lighter loves. He brought a virgin heart to lay at the feet of the woman he loved. And, in spite of the sorrow and the woe to which he had been a witness, life promised fair to Peter Rosmead that summer morning as he rode through Glenogle and watched the sheen of the sun upon hill and water and heard the birds singing their heart out in the crystal clearness of the upper air.
He would go to America and attend with a single mind to his business there, leaving the dear woman in peace. Then, when he returned at Christmas, he would see. His heart would tell him then whether it was time to speak. Few misgivings were his. He believed that Isla Mackinnon was the woman that God had given to him and that she had been kept for him through all the years of his strenuous young manhood, and that for her dear sake he had been able to live without blame and without reproach.
For that, above all else, he gave God thanks in his heart.
Meanwhile, in the Lodge on the edge of the Moor of Creagh the storm rose and raged. Malcolm, a little stupefied, kept demanding what had happened.
"He is dead!" cried Isla, in the shrill, hard tone that had no kinship with that of her usually sweet low voice. "And the thing that killed him was the letter from India--Colonel Martindale's version of the story."
"Give it to me!" said Malcolm, with an air almost of menace as he stepped to her side.
"No, I will not," she answered clearly. "It is not yours. It was father's, and now it is mine. To think that after all our watching, it should have fallen into his hands at last!"
Malcolm, very white and haggard now, moved with a step that was very unsteady into the library, Isla following, for it suddenly dawned upon her that it was unseemly to wrangle there within a step of the chamber of death.
"Tell me what has happened," he said hoarsely. "Surely you will not deny me the right to know."
"There it very little to tell," said Isla drearily. "I went out early, and before going to meet David Bain, I went to the keeper's house at Rofallion to ask for Mrs. Dugid. Then while I was waiting at the gate for David Mr. Rosmead came up."
"And David had delivered the letters, I suppose, while you were at Rofallion?"
"Yes, of course, and father opened that one, and, though he might have looked at a dozen others without comprehending their meaning, he knew the meaning of that one at once," she said.
And her face set again like the nether millstone.
She had no pity for Malcolm, she did not even in that moment of awful bitterness give him credit for one spark of decent feeling. She hardly observed that he was trembling like an aspen and that his face had grown haggard about the mouth, like that of an old man.
"Isla, I want that letter. I must have it," he said in a low voice.
She heard him as she heard him not, and his tone became more desperate.
"Did you read it, Isla?"
"No."
"Will you read it?"
"No."
"Then give it to me."
"Oh, what does it matter? The fire is the place for it--the very heart of it, where it will be consumed quickly, now that it has done its deadly work," she said drearily "Do you understand what has happened, Malcolm? Our father is dead, and it is you who have killed him, just as surely as if you had put a bullet into him."
"For God's sake, hold your tongue, Isla! You would drive a man to the edge of despair."
"What about me?" she cried in a kind of frenzy, throwing her self-control to the winds. "It is all of self you speak. Don't you understand that it is a martyrdom and nothing else that I have suffered in the last five--no, in the last ten years, ever since I was able to know the meaning of the things that happened? Through you our souls, our hearts, and sometimes our bodies have been starved in Achree, and the old place has been suffered to sink into the dust, and has finally passed into the hands of strangers. All this would not have mattered if only you had been good and brave and a little like what you ought to have been. We could have borne poverty with a smile. But it was your misdeeds, your squandering of Achree that poisoned existence for him until slowly his mind gave way. And I had to stand by and see it and be glad of it, because in that way he suffered less. But I suffered more. If there is a God in heaven He must judge this day between you and me, Malcolm Mackinnon."
"For God's sake Isla, hold your tongue!" he repeated, but his voice sounded weak and almost faint.
He was no coward in some directions, but the look on his sister's face was awful to see and her words seared themselves upon his brain. He had no idea until now of the red-hot fires of passion glowing beneath her quiet exterior. But now he knew, and the revelation never afterwards passed from his remembrance.
"I must speak just this once, for we are going to part, Malcolm; now the last bond between us is snapped. I will never forgive you. You broke my father's heart, and mine is in the dust, where it will lie till the end. I hope that you are very proud of your work."
He turned away with a deep groan and covered his face with his hands.
"Now you are the Laird of Achree," she continued, "and there is none to hinder you from making its devastation complete. As for me, I will pass away from Glenogle and never come near it any more."
He turned to her then, and his eyes looked for a moment as hers sometimes had done, full of a most wistful appeal.
"Hold hard, Isla! Don't you think I've had enough? I don't want to justify myself. I admit that the letter gave the shock, and that is punishment enough for me. Don't rub it in. Far less has sent a man to the lower-most hell."
She did not seem to comprehend the words--or even to hear them.
She appeared suddenly to be possessed by a new idea, and, undoing the pearl button of her blouse, she drew forth the letter and held it out.
"Take it. There is no use for me to keep it. I don't want to read it. It is yours."
She opened the door, passed him by, and went, bare-headed, into the drowsy sunshine, and a lark in the clear blue of the sky seemed suddenly to mock her with his wealth of full-throated song. She walked blindly, yet her feet guided her away to the great spaces of the Moor of Creagh, where she could be alone under the clear canopy of heaven and where the messengers of the Unseen were free to comfort her.
Malcolm, still shaky and trembling, looked about with the air of a man who does not know which way to turn. Then he sat him down and braced himself for the effort of reading the letter which had fallen like the crack of doom upon the old man's heart.
It was such a letter as one true friend might write to another, carefully worded so that it would not inflict any unnecessary pain. It was a letter which had cost its writer several sleepless nights--a letter of duty and friendship for a man whom he had never met, but whose name was still honoured in the service that he had adorned.
Had the Colonel known of the old man's state of health that letter would never have been written. But it told the truth--the whole truth, without varnish or embroidery, in the simple language which is all that a soldier has at his command.
Malcolm Mackinnon set his teeth as he read it, and surely in that awful moment he expiated part at least of his many sins.
After what seemed a long, long time he picked himself up heavily, crushed the letter in his hand, and threw it into the fire, where he watched it caught by a greedy flame and consumed to the uttermost edge.
Then he left the room, passed by, unseeing, the doddering Diarmid in the hall, and slowly mounted the narrow stairs.
He did not pause or falter at the door of the chamber of death, but opened it swiftly, closed it again, and walked to the side of the bed. There, for a moment, he stood in silence. Then Diarmid, listening below, heard a cry which he never forgot. It was that of a soul in an anguish which cannot be uttered.
"Forgive!" was the only word that fell brokenly from his lips as he knelt, sobbing by the bed, and laid his aching and throbbing head on the snow-white gloss of the coverlet.
The dead answered not, nor made any sign. But the peace upon the beautiful old face was that of one who has passed over, and who understands.