The impression Isla carried away was one of hopelessness, of absolute lack of interest in life on the part of her future employer. She was not attractive physically, yet there was something kindly and pitiful about her. As she left the room Isla registered a vow that she would do what she could to arouse her and to give her some fresh interest in life. Probably Mrs. Chard had a doctor--that kind of woman always had a fashionable physician in close attendance. Perhaps he and she could consult together and devise some remedial measure. The prospect of grappling with a fresh difficulty exhilarated her. When she closed the door she was surprised to see Fifine, the French maid, unconcernedly walk away from it as though she had been listening. She turned quite coolly to Isla, and put her head on one side, while her small, pretty hands met in front of her dainty person. "Have you got ze job, Mees?" she asked pertly. Isla coloured, looked very straightly and haughtily at her, and passed her by. An English servant would have fully understood the rebuke, and even Fifine knew that she had been put in her proper place. She shook her small fist after the retreating figure on the stairs, and from that moment Isla had an enemy in the house. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when she got back to Cromer Street, where she found Agnes Fraser in some perturbation regarding her long absence. Agnes was now fully dressed in her neat black frock with the little Puritan collar, and the whole house looked more comfortable and better cared for. Isla forgot the abomination of desolation that had reigned in the morning, and she greeted Agnes with a gay smile as she came out of the dining-room to meet her. "I’m so glad to see you down, Agnes. Where have I been? Oh, in search of adventure. Where can we sit down till I tell you all about it?" The Frasers chiefly occupied a very small breakfast-room at the back--a place which seldom got the sun, but which looked cosy enough on a dull afternoon, with a cheerful fire in the grate and a tea-tray on the end of the table. "Eh, but I’m tired, Miss Isla. I’ve been in the kitchen since eleven o’clock. What a place! But I’ve set them to clean up and, now that I’ll be up in the mornin’s mysel’ things will get a’ richt. I was fair upset when I heard ye had gane oot so early this mornin’ and withoot a proper breakfast. Hae ye had onything to eat since?" Isla explained so gaily that Agnes concluded that she must have had some good luck. When she heard the story of the morning she uplifted her hands in sheer astonishment. "The thing that beats me is that ye should hae got something so quick, Miss Isla. I’ve had them here lookin’ for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. It’s a sad business, but I hope thae folk wi’ the queer name will be a’ richt." "They interest me, and I’m not in the least afraid. No, there aren’t any dark mysteries, I’m sure."