It was not as if the boy had no home. As long as Princess Pauloffski ruled over the pine woods, the quaint homely farmhouses, and the devoted peasants, little Marmaduke would have more than welcome; for every week brought ecstatic letters from that entrancing personality which had already made such a mark on Marrion's character. In a way she felt that she had never understood her own womanhood until she had met with the all-embracing femininity of the brave, wise, old mind which seemed to hold a grip of the whole world in its very isolation and solitude. Yes, the child could have no better home; and even when the commanding, lovable figure passed, it might be that he would remain as heir. So Marrion was in a fever to have the child there, yet at the back of her mind was a vague regret; and she had chosen the little Aberdeenshire fishing village as the place for her convalescence because from it she could see the view of her childhood and girlhood--see right away to Rattray Head and beyond it----? The North Pole! She was not afraid of being recognised. Fifteen miles in the country effaces all familiarity, and she kept much to herself, taking the child down with her day after day, to some sheltered sandy nook, where in the hot June weather she could sit and dream--rather idly, it must be confessed, for the sheer delight of living to have a living child had absorbed her mind. So the days passed, until for the last time she carried it down to her favourite beach. The dry warm sand was a perfect cradle for the child. She scraped a little hollow in it at her feet, laid her treasure down, and sat on a boulder beside it, in absolute worship. The waves, always restless on the North Sea, tinkled a lullaby on the rocks hard by. She was roused by the sound of a footstep. So few folk ever passed that she looked up surprised. Then she gave a glad cry and stood up holding out both hands; for it was Andrew Fraser. He also held out a hand, for one empty sleeve of his coat was pinned to his breast. He came rapidly towards her, seemingly unobservant of the child, till within a few feet of her. Then he stopped dead and stared at what lay at her feet. "I didna know," he said, brokenly at last. "They didna say---- God, but I'm glad, Marrion! Oh, Marrion, I'm glad!" Then without waiting to greet her he knelt down for a closer look. "He's a real Drummuir," he went on ecstatically, "and he is Drummuir! Ah," he added, a trifle irrationally, "that the colonel could ha' lived to see little Lord Drummuir!" Something gripped at Marrion's heart. "Don't let us speak of that now, Andrew," she said hastily. "I want to know--everything--your poor arm----" But Andrew for the time being was entranced. "It's me," he said, "is wanting to know! And how old will he be? And why did the doctor fellow no tell me when he tauld me aboot you?"