She had acquired the habit of legislating for everybody, and up to a certain point of setting the standard of conduct. Her conscience she would make the universal conscience, forgetting that there were degrees and differences of temperament. By an effort of will she had held out a sort of grudging olive branch to Malcolm. But she had done this simply and solely because she wished to remain in Glenogle and because there was no place for her except under his roof. The injustice of it all ate into her heart. Malcolm, who had done nothing for the Glen, and who, in her estimation, was totally unfitted to have the destinies of so many in his keeping, had the whole power in his hands, and none could say him nay. The sudden change in his position had made a great difference to Malcolm. From being a guest on sufferance, disapproved of by Isla, who was mistress of the situation, he had stepped into power, which simply reversed their positions. Isla, so to speak, was now his guest, and, because there had been no will and there was nothing except the land to divide, a pensioner on his bounty. Love would have laughed at the difficulties with which the situation bristled. But the difficulty of existence in these circumstances became more acute, and, to Isla, every day more unbearable. It was not that Malcolm was rude or actively unkind. Nay, his gay good humour never failed. But he had no use for her advice and he absolutely ignored anything she said as to his conduct of affairs. Take the case of the Maclures, for instance. "You’ll never put Donald Maclure out of Darrach, Malcolm," she said one day in the autumn, when Martinmas was looming in sight. "I met him yesterday, and he looked like a man under sentence of death. He had heard that you have been in communication with a man in Fife about the croft. Is that true?" "It might be, and, again, it might not be," he answered, though there was not a word of truth in the report yet. He had thought of it, but it was characteristic of Malcolm’s nature to postpone most of the serious things of life till a more convenient season. And just then his energies and his hopes were elsewhere engaged. "But, Malcolm," she said, with a touch of passion, "it isn’t right to treat the folk like that--to torment them without sense or purpose. They haven’t been used to it." "No--they’ve been used to nothing but having their own way, to paying when they liked and what they liked," he answered, with a touch of grimness. "But I’m going to alter all that." They were at breakfast at the moment, and she looked down the narrow table at him with a feeling of strong disgust. There is no bitterness like the bitterness between those of one blood who persistently misunderstand and misjudge each other.