“Oh, you greedy person. I fancied you might be puzzling out the enigma of that red-haired girl. I must confess that she baffles _me_. She’s a physiological freak; she’s a white crow. What business has she to feed pigs with those little taper hands? Tell me that?” But her cautious companion was not prepared to tell her anything as yet; he would keep his discovery to himself. Emily had an active mind, a healthy curiosity, a world-wide correspondence, and in answer to her question, “Tell me that?” he merely shook his head, in token of hopeless ignorance. Personally, he had no shadow of doubt as to the girl’s identity, and as he strolled up and down the road in front of the hotel after dinner, he held a long debate as to what he ought to do. Should he hold his peace, leave Lady Mary to her wash-tub and her gate, or should he write the wonderful news to the earl, her father? CHAPTER XII From the slated cottage at the corner of a country lane it is a long step to an historical castle in Perthshire. Here the Marquis of Maxwelton is entertaining a large party for the twelfth. His moors are as celebrated as his gaunt old fortress, built after the French fashion, in the time when the Guise family held sway in Scotland. The château has been modernised, and the gardens and grounds are unsurpassed for beauty and originality. Among the guests are the Earl and Countess of Mulgrave and Miss Tito Dawson--the Countess’s daughter by a former alliance. The ladies are lounging in the gardens, the earl is on the moor with the guns. He is a fine shot and a keen sportsman. A tall, slim man of fifty with clearly cut profile, grizzly hair, and a pair of deep-set, melancholy eyes. He has a polished manner, a pleasant voice, is an agreeable acquaintance and popular landlord; but the real Earl of Mulgrave lives far behind those melancholy eyes, entrenched in an impenetrable reserve. Thus far and no further his guests can go. He is ready to entertain them, to shoot, play billiards, talk politics, and subscribe money; lavish with time and with his fortune, he is niggardly of himself. His life--how little people guess!--has for years been one long disappointment. After his young wife’s death he became a rover--driven from country to country by his own despair. One autumn afternoon at Granada he came upon a party of tourists, or rather they came upon him, and among these was a lady who, to his starved heart, brought dim memories of Joseline, his lost idol. Mrs. Dawson was slim and animated. She had brown eyes and mahogany-coloured hair. A free lance, with great ambitions and small possessions, she set herself to lay siege to the handsome, heart-broken _parti_. Her cue was “sympathy.” Each had known losses--irreparable losses. The departure of Captain Dawson had been hastened by drink. Oh what profanation to bracket _him_ with Joseline Mulgrave!