"Bisley was my name," she said grimly. "Good night, Miss Mackinnon. If it should be that you ever want to see me again--and stranger things have happened--you’ll find me at 21 Henrietta Street, off the Edgeware Road--fourth turning on your left from the Marble Arch." "I’ll remember it," said Isla hastily. "Good night." She was glad once more to escape. She had got much fresh food for thought, and she was at a loss to know how to act in a matter which seemed to concern her, and yet with which she was loth to intermeddle. On one point, however, her mind was absolutely made up. Malcolm should not win Vivien Rosmead under false pretences. Not for the second time should the peace and happiness of that dear woman be imperilled. But she did not yet know how she was going to prevent the crowning act of the tragedy of Malcolm’s life. "Tragedy" was the word Isla used to herself as the whole story beat upon her brain where she lay, tossing sleepless in her noisy bedroom, disturbed by the shriek of the trains, the long dull roar of life in the Euston Road, and, above all, by the phantoms of her own sad heart. How easily, by putting a few adroit questions, could she have wiled the whole story from her fellow-traveller’s lips! It was not her pride alone that had prevented her from asking these questions. She was afraid. She fell asleep with one last haunting thought in her mind--how much happier than she were the Mackinnons who slept their last dreamless sleep on the Braes of Balquhidder. CHAPTER XX THE REALITY OF THINGS Towards the morning Isla fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, from which she did not awake till half-past ten o’clock. A sense of confusion and dismay swept over her when she realized how late it was, until she remembered that, in her scheme of things, time just then was of no consequence. Certainly she had things to do, but the hour of their doing mattered to no man or woman. She was alone, she was free, this day and other days were in front of her to do with what she willed. She sprang up, rang for hot water, and, pulling up the blind a little way, looked out upon streets bathed in a flood of glorious autumn sunshine. Somehow, it comforted her that London did not weep at her coming. It seemed an augury of good will. She had not known how physically tired she was until she had stretched herself on her bed. And now, her strength fully restored by sleep, her spirit became less craven. She was still joyous over her escape. Things might happen in the Glen and she would never know. She, whose interest in the smallest event there had ever been of the warm and proprietary kind, had by one drastic step cut herself off from her old life. And for the moment she had room for little else in her mind but a sense of lively relief that she had gotten clean away.