His lordship laughed, and, again commending the tale, rose: it was time to re-embark--an operation less arduous than before, for in the present state of the tide it was easy to bring the cutter so close to a low rock that even Lady Florimel could step on board. As they had now to beat to windward, Malcolm kept the tiller in his own hand. But indeed, Lady Florimel did not want to steer; she was so much occupied with her thoughts that her hands must remain idle. Partly to turn them away from the more terrible portion of her adventure, she began to reflect upon her interview with Mrs Catanach --if _interview_ it could be called, where she had seen no one. At first she was sorry that she had not told her father of it, and had the ruin searched; but when she thought of the communication the woman had made to her, she came to the conclusion that it was, for various reasons--not to mention the probability that he would have set it all down to the workings of an unavoidably excited nervous condition--better that she should mention it to no one but Duncan MacPhail. When they arrived at the harbour-quay, they found the carriage waiting, but neither the marquis nor Lady Florimel thought of Malcolm’s foot, and he was left to limp painfully home. As he passed Mrs Catanach’s cottage, he looked up: there were the blinds still drawn down; the door was shut, and the place was silent as the grave. By the time he reached Lossie House, his foot was very much swollen. When Mrs Courthope saw it, she sent him to bed at once, and applied a poultice. CHAPTER XLII. DUNCAN’S DISCLOSURE. The night long Malcolm kept dreaming of his fall; and his dreams were worse than the reality, inasmuch as they invariably sent him sliding out of the breach, to receive the cut on the rocks below. Very oddly this catastrophe was always occasioned by the grasp of a hand on his ankle. Invariably also, just as he slipped, the face of the Prince appeared in the breach, but it was at the same time the face of Mrs Catanach. The next morning, Mrs Courthope found him feverish, and insisted on his remaining in bed--no small trial to one who had never been an hour ill in his life; but he was suffering so much that he made little resistance.