"You feel for her. Perhaps she’s a friend of yours, but it had to be done. You don’t know what it is to see another woman get hold of the man you care for and who belongs to you. I like you, and I pray God you may never know what it’s like. Well, I told her just the whole story--the story I haven’t told you, though you’re sharp enough and can fill it all up. "What did she say?--not much, but I could see that it finished him in that quarter, which was all I cared about. "Well, then I sent for him. When he came he had seen her. I could tell it by the white despair on his face, and then I knew that it was not her money he wanted at all, but that he cared about her as he had never cared about me, that she was his own kind--the sort that would lift him right up and make the best of him. "Something seemed to snap inside of me. I believe it was my heart that broke. I didn’t reproach him. He did all the reproaching--there, in the dark, by that God-forsaken loch. We seemed to walk for hours, and I don’t know where we were when he left me. He said his life was over, but I never thought or believed he would take it away. To tell you the truth, Miss, I didn’t believe he had the courage to do it." "You think he did it, then?" said Isla in a low, tense whisper. "I know it. He simply went out in that boat, never meaning to come back. You and I know it, but we needn’t tell. And anyway, perhaps it’s better; only I wish it had been me--I wish it had been me!" Her voice broke into a little wail, and she covered her face with her hands. Isla went to her side and laid her hand, which trembled very much, on her shoulder. "I am very sorry for you. If I knew how to help or comfort you I would." She caught Isla’s hand, laid her cheek a moment against it, and then began to walk unsteadily towards the door. "You’re a good woman--one of the best," she said, pausing a moment. "I hope you’ll be happy yet. You’ll never hear of me again. I’m going away to-night back to my own place. But I thought I’d like to see you before I went and tell you the truth. Good-bye." But even after Isla’s hand was on the door she lingered, as if something still remained unsaid. "When you see her tell her that I loved him and that I could never have been so hard on him as she was. If he had really cared, tell her, she would have forgiven even me." "Oh, hush!" cried Isla in distress. "You don’t know all she has suffered. But it is no good to talk. Life is an awful thing. Thank you for coming. I shall often think of you, and, though I have no right, for I, too, have been hard, I’ll--I’ll pray for you." A kiss passed between them, and they parted--never to meet again in this world. Isla went through the house and out by the kitchen door to the hill beyond. She was so long gone that when she came back the Garrion carriage was at the door, and Sir Tom with Neil Drummond was in the drawing-room with her aunt.