For which causes and reasons, seemingly quite insufficient to any one but Patsy, she was escaping every day to plot black treason with Kennedy McClure, whenever that worthy old gentleman was not either at Barnet Fair or Smithfield Market, the only two places in London which had any interest for him. And of course, at this critical moment, there arrived the cataclysmic letter from Stair. "The Bothy was attacked and surrounded last night. We can hold out for at least a week! "STAIR." Then everything grew dazed about her--Hanover Lodge and the Princess, the empty phantasmagoria of courts, balls and routs, the disputes and reconciliations of royal Dukes, Louis and his half-cured amours with the Arlington. What did all these things matter? Perhaps at that very moment the Bothy had been taken by storm, and Patsy's quick mind saw Stair and her Uncle Julian lying dead out on the face of the moor, the soldiers who had done the work having no time for even a peat-hag burial. But Kennedy McClure was a strong tower. If he were affected by the message he certainly did not show it. "Hoots, lass," he said, patting her shoulder, "greetin' does no good. Come wi' me the morn in the _Good Intent_. That will be three tides before her regular sailing date, but I ken Captain Penman. He is under some obligations to me, and the _Good Intent_--weel, she's maistly my ain. But though ye canna speak to the Princess, ye had better tell Miss Aline. Being Gallowa-born and Gallowa-bred, she will understand and speak for ye to the Princess." Patsy promised, though reluctantly, to do what was necessary in Miss Aline's case. It was monstrous and hateful to her that she should need to go back to Hanover Lodge at all. But she recognized that Kennedy McClure was likely to be right, and as she was only anticipating by a few weeks what she meant to do ever since she had begun to talk with the Laird of Supsorrow, she resolved to interview Miss Aline instantly. Miss Aline also had her own reasons for being wearied of Hanover Lodge. It "wasna' her ain country" and the "fremit folk (especially the 'flonkies') vexed her sair!" Thus from the first there was no question of her letting Patsy go back alone. "Fegs, no," she cried, "what do ye tak' me for? Lassie, do ye not ken that I am here for the purpose o' lookin' after you--little as I have been able to accomplish, with you as flichty as the Wemysses and as dour as the Ferrises. It is the Lord's ain peety that ye werena' born reasonable and wise like the Mintos--!" "And your grandfather--" Patsy suggested, "him they call Hellfire Minto--what was it he did to the poor man at Falkirk Tryst?"