Garrion folks, in common with others, had frequently made inquiries about Isla’s welfare, and Malcolm had invariably answered that she was all right. None of them had any doubt but that she had been with the Barras Mackinnons for the last two months. "They’ve left the place. They’re going back to Barras on Friday, but Isla isn’t with them. She never has been." "Never has been! Then, where is she?" asked Neil blankly. "Well, old chap, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. When she left she certainly said that she was going to them." "But haven’t you had any letters?" "Not a blessed one." Neil looked him all over with a sudden, sharp scrutiny that, to another man, would have been, to say the least of it, unpleasant. "You say you haven’t known all this time where she is?" "I haven’t known. I tell you she hasn’t written to me. That’s why I asked whether your sister had heard." "And you haven’t made the smallest effort to find out?" "Why should I?" inquired Malcolm coolly. "She’s of age, she knows her own mind, she had plenty of money, and she doesn’t want to be harried about her private business. You don’t know Isla, Neil, though you think you do, and the man who marries her will have a hard row to hoe. I can tell you that." Drummond crushed back the desire to take Malcolm Mackinnon by the throat. He was not normal where Isla was concerned, and he took a far more serious view of the situation than there was any need to do. "Do you mean to say that you haven’t the shadow of a clue as to where she is or what she is doing? Haven’t you any other friends in London to whom she could have gone?" "None--except an old servant of Achree who lives somewhere about the Edgeware Road," said Malcolm with a sudden flash of remembrance. "Don’t wear such a worried look, old chap, and don’t forget that Isla is twenty-six years of age and more capable than either of us of looking after herself." "But, hang it all, she’s a woman, Malcolm, and--and your sister ought not to be adrift like that!" "She isn’t adrift," said Malcolm cheerily. "And, anyway, what can we do? If she chooses to hide herself, as she seems to be doing, who is to prevent her? She has her reasons for doing so, no doubt." Neil Drummond was conscious of a growing indignation, of a swift return of his old rage against Malcolm, and of scorn of that careless, irresponsible being who had made life such a burden to the woman whom Neil himself loved. He withdrew with a snort into his own corner and jumped out at Callander with a very curt good-bye.