But then came her father’s threat, his blazing fiery eyes, his hand clenched and shaken in her face, the fury of his outcry: “I’ll just kill ye where ye stand--I’ll put you to the door.” Kirsteen remembered Anne, and her soul sank. Anne had a husband to take care of her, she had a house, wherever it was; but Kirsteen would have nothing. And what would become of her if she were put to the door? Where would she go to find a shelter? Another grotesque vision--but not so grotesque to her imagination--of the poor beggar-woman with a meal-pack on her shoulder which her father had evoked, flitted before her mind. No, she would not be like that. She would take care of bairns, or keep a house, or even make muslin gowns like Miss Macnab. There were plenty of things she could do!--it would be long, long before she need come to the meal-pack. But then there burst over Kirsteen’s mind another revelation: the shame of it! She, a Douglas--one of the old Douglases, that had been the lords of the whole land, not only of poor Drumcarro--a gentlewoman of as good blood as the Duchess or any grand lady, and one that could not be hidden or made to appear as if she were a common person! And the scandal of it, to open up the house and all its concerns to ill talk--to make it open to all the world to say that Drumcarro was an ill father, and the house a cruel house, or that the Douglas lassies were not what ladies should be, but lightheaded and ill-conducted, rebels against their own kith and kin. This was the most terrible thought of all. The others seemed to open up a way of escape, but this closed the door; it is an ill bird that files its own nest. How could Kirsteen do that? shame her family so that even Sandy and Nigil and Charlie and Donald in India, even little Robbie, should hear of it and think shame--so that _he_ should hear that Kirsteen had let herself be talked about? so that Drumcarro should be lightly spoken of and all its secrets laid bare? This new suggestion brought back all the passion and the confusion that the influence of the air and the freedom out of doors, and the quiet time to think had calmed down. To endure is always possible if you set your heart to do it, whatever happens; but to shame and to expose your own house! “Where have ye been, Kirsteen?” said Mrs. Douglas. “I never saw a person like you for running out when you’re most wanted. You should not take your walks in the forenoon when we’re all at work.” “Did you want me, mother? I was not fit to sit down to my work. I had a--buzzing in my head.” “’Deed I think ye have always a buzzing in your head. Sometimes I speak to ye three times before ye answer me.” “She’s uplifted with her prospects,” said Mary, “and no wonder. I think ye should excuse her this day.” Mary intended to be very kind to Kirsteen. She had made up her mind to be a very frequent visitor at her sister’s house.