But she apparently had forgotten him. Her chin was resting on her hand, and her eyes were fixed upon the landscape, bathed in sunshine, which was speeding past them. She did not even look round when he carefully folded the paper and put it well under his travelling-rug in the tar corner of the rack. Then he lifted the "Times" and glanced through it, only to find on the second page the same item of intelligence considerably condensed. That also he removed, and took up one of the magazines. He was totally unaware that he was holding it upside down. He had to find some way out of this awful difficulty--to coin words which would acquaint Isla with what seemed to be the final tragedy of her life. He was scarcely alive to the fact that he now learned for the first time of Mackinnon’s engagement to Vivien, the letter informing him of it having only reached America the day after he had left it. He had concern only for one at the moment, and his sole consideration was how to break the news to her. One moment he thought of giving her the newspaper casually, and thus getting over it; the next he thought he would keep it from her to the last moment. But they were speeding towards Glenogle, where the last act of Malcolm Mackinnon’s tragic life had been played. Presently Isla turned to him with a smile. "It is very pleasant to be going home, don’t you think? I was just counting how many weeks I had been out of Glenogle and thinking how glad I shall be to see it again. When I left it I never thought I should wish to come back any more." "I am glad you feel like that," he said with an odd note of strain in his voice. "I have ordered the car to meet us at Stirling, so that we shall get home ahead of the train." Her eyes sparkled with a child-like enjoyment. "Oh, that will be delightful! I wrote to Malcolm yesterday. He will probably be waiting at Lochearnhead Station. I must wire to him at Crewe." "I’ll see to it," said Rosmead heavily, and his tongue felt as if it were cleaving to the roof of his mouth. He took her to lunch, and she enjoyed it all, though it concerned her that he ate so little. She was not troubling herself that the other matter seemed to have disappeared into the background, and that he made not the smallest allusion to it. She was grateful to him for his consideration, but she was not surprised. From Peter Rosmead she would expect only the best. He would neither say nor do that which would vex the heart of a woman or increase by a hairsbreadth her perplexities. Oh, she had made no mistake! she thought as she glanced confidently across at his grave, strong face, when she left him to act for her. After carefully observing that the papers were out of the way, he got out at Crewe and made his way hastily to the telegraph office to send an explanatory message to his mother. By that time he had arrived at a quite clear estimate of what was in front and at a decision as to the right thing to do.