"Yes, yes; yes, yes," he said, after a moment’s deliberation. "I was thinking too much of the Little Red Dwarf; I was thinking too much of that side of it. I will go back to Lochgarra, and at once. And this is Thursday; the steamer will be coming down from Glasgow to-day; that will be the easiest way for us to go back." There was a flash of joy and triumph—and of gratitude—in Käthchen’s sufficiently pretty eyes. CHAPTER IX. THE BANABHARD. The big steamer was slowly and cautiously making in for Lochgarra Bay—slowly and cautiously, for though the harbour is an excellent one after you are in it, the entrance is somewhat difficult of navigation; and Donald Ross and Kate Glendinning were seated in the after part of the boat, passing the time in talking. And of course it was mostly of Miss Stanley they spoke. "For one thing, you ought to remember," said Käthchen, "the amount of prejudice against you she has had to overcome. If you only knew the character she received of you the very first evening we arrived here! I wonder if you would recognise the picture—a terrible outlaw living in a lonely island, a drunken, thieving, poaching ne’er-do-well, a malignant conspirator and mischief-maker: Mr. Purdie laid on the colours pretty thickly. By the way, I wish you would tell me the cause of that bitter animosity Mr. Purdie shows against you and all your family——" "It is simple enough—but it is not worth speaking about," he said, with a certain indifference. It was not of Purdie, nor of Purdie’s doings, that he was thinking at the moment. "But I want to know—I am curious to know," Käthchen insisted.