He did not doubt in the least that he would find her, but he had to walk a little farther than he expected. At the end of the beautiful sheet of water there is a winding path, and, passing there, he looked up and saw, sitting on one of the seats, a solitary figure which he thought looked like Isla. Only at the distance he could not be quite certain. It did not take him long to cover it. Dashing past the smart nursemaids and the bonnie bairns, whose sweet freshness even London fogs could not dim, he came presently to her side. And Isla, sitting with her head slightly turned away, was not aware of his presence till the gravel crunched under his impetuous foot and her name was spoken in the quick accents of apprehensive love. She rose up a little wildly, stretched out her hands, essayed to speak, then went white all over, and collapsed, a little heap of unconscious humanity, on the seat. CHAPTER XXV THE ARCH-PLOTTERS Lady Betty Neil, the aunt of the Drummonds, who lived with them at Garrion, was a Highland lady of the old school. She loved the Gaelic and deplored its increasing disuse in the Glen, she had all the lore of the North country at her finger-ends, and was, moreover, gifted with the second-sight. Certainly, when she received a peremptory telegram from her nephew on the second day after his departure for London, she evinced neither perturbation nor surprise. "You go to London, Aunt Betty!" cried Kitty, open-mouthed. "What does he mean? How dare he? Let me see the telegram." Lady Betty, leaning on her ebony stick with her left hand, produced from her reticule the crumpled piece of pink paper bearing the summons. "I need you in London. Will meet you to-morrow night. Euston, half-past six." Kitty looked from the telegram to her aunt’s face and back again in sheer amaze. Never had Lady Betty looked more like "an ancestor," which was Sadie Rosmead’s name for her. She was a picturesque old lady of great height and commanding mien, her hair and eyes still as black as sloes, her face beautiful still, in spite of its wrinkles--the face that had once been the toast of a county. She was the Drummonds’ nearest relative, their mother’s sister, in fact, and, though immensely wealthy, she had no fixed habitation of her own, and she had agreed to live at Garrion, at any rate until Neil brought home a wife. That he had found one now she did not doubt, and she hoped that he had. Isla Mackinnon was a woman after her own heart. Neil had confided to her the nature of the business that had taken him to London, but he had enjoined silence. "Kitty can’t hold her tongue, as you know, Aunt Betty. Besides, she’s too thick at Achree at present, and I don’t want them to get wind of it. This is a business that has to be done on the quiet."