The friendship between his own family and that of Morphie House had gone far back into the preceding century, long before Mr. Lamont, second son of an impoverished earl, had inherited the property through his mother, and settled down upon it with Lady Eliza, his unmarried sister. At his death she had stepped into his place, still unmarried, a blunt, prejudiced woman, understood by few, and, oddly enough, liked by many. Morphie was hers for life and was to pass, at her death, to a distant relation of her mother’s family. She was well off, and, being the only occupant of a large house, with few personal wants and but one expensive taste, she had become as autocratic as a full purse and a life outside the struggles and knocks of the world will make anyone who is in possession of both. The expensive taste was her stable; for, from the hour that she had been lifted as a little child upon the back of her father’s horse, she had wavered only once in her decision that horses and all pertaining to them presented by far the most attractive possibilities in life. Her hour of wavering had come later. The fire threw bright flickerings into the darkness of the room as Lady Eliza sat and drank her tea. The servant who had brought it would have brought in lights, too, but she refused to have them, saying that she was tired and that the dusk soothed her head, and she withdrew into the furthest corner of a high-backed settee, with the little dish beside her on a spindle-legged table. Fullarton sat at the other end of the hearth, his elbows on his knees and his hands spread to the blaze. They were large hands, nervous and well formed. His face, on which the firelight played, had a look of preoccupation, and the horizontal lines of his forehead seemed deeper than usual--at least, so his companion thought. It was easily seen that they were very intimate, from the silence in which they sat. ‘Surely you must be rather wet,’ said he again, after a few minutes. ‘I think it would be wise if you were to change your habit for dry clothes.’ ‘No; I will sit here.’ ‘You have always been a self-willed woman, my lady.’ She made no reply, merely turning her cane round and round in her hand. A loud crash came from the fire, and a large piece of wood fell into the fender with a sputter of blue fireworks. He picked it up with the tongs and set it back in its place. She watched him silently. It was too dark to read the expression in her eyes. ‘I have seen young Whanland,’ she said suddenly. ‘Indeed,’ said Fullarton. ‘He caught the mare and brought her to me at Granny Stirk’s house.’ ‘What is he like?’ he asked, after a pause. ‘A proper young fellow. He obliged me very greatly. Have you not met him? He has been at Whanland this fortnight past, I am told.’ ‘No,’ said Fullarton, with his eyes on the flame, ‘never. I have never seen him.’