"I know all about that," said Maisrie. "I can pacify him about that; and I’m going upstairs directly." Of course she had to wait and see Miss Bethune and the doctor leave; then she turned to Vincent. "Will you go out for a walk, Vincent? I have asked Mrs. MacGill to let you have some dinner at seven." "Oh, don’t you bother about me, Maisrie!" he said. "Can’t I be of any use to you upstairs?" "Not unless grandfather asks for you again—then I will send for you," she answered. She was going away when he interrupted her for a moment. "I will come up whenever you want me," he said; and then he added: "But—but—you know him so much better than I do, Maisrie. Do you think we should tell him of Miss Bethune having been here?" "Oh, no, no, Vincent!" she said, in earnest remonstrance. "Nothing would excite him more terribly. You know he has already been talking of some message coming from Balloray to me—of the possibility of it—and this would set his brain working in a hundred different directions. He might think they were coming to take me away from him—perhaps to do me some harm—or he might imagine that I had humbled myself before them, to make friends with them, and that would trouble him more than anything else: you cannot tell what wild fancies might not get into his head. So there must not be a word said about Miss Bethune, Vincent." "Of course you know best, Maisrie," said he. And still he did not let her go. What was he to say next, to detain her? It was so long since he had heard her voice! "When you go upstairs, Maisrie, I wish you would look at the book of ballads that is lying on the table. There are some lines marked—you will see a bit of paper to tell you the page. Do you know what that means? Your grandfather thought that he might not have strength enough left to speak to me when I came; and so this was to be a last message for me. Isn’t it strange that in the face of so serious an illness he should be thinking about a ballad; but you know better than anyone that ballads are as real to your grandfather as the actual things around him. And I want you to look at that message. I have told your grandfather that he may depend on me."