"Can you find your way? There are two staircases, but you can get out by either," said Isla, and they stood just a moment on the narrow landing till Rosmead had found his way out. He passed out into the mellow sunshine of the afternoon with a sense of relief. The old house saddened him. It seemed to be peopled with dead hopes and with old memories and to have no kinship with the warm and happy life of men. As he stepped on the gravel the sound of wheels broke the stillness, and a dogcart, in which was a beautiful, high-stepping chestnut horse, was rapidly driven up to the door. It contained two persons--a man and a woman, both young--who had evidently come to pay a call at Achree. Raising his hat slightly, he turned aside to walk round by the gable-end of the house in order to see it from the back. Just beyond the rolled gravel he came upon another pathetic sight--the old General in his Inverness cloak and with his bonnet on his thin white hair, leaning heavily on his stick and watching the antics of a little brown dog in front of a rabbit-hole. He was quite alone; and Rosmead, in whom reverence for the old was a passion as well as a virtue, involuntarily took off his hat. "Come back, you little vixen!" the old man called with a little chuckle to the brown dog. And, just at the moment, Janet, conscious of the approach of a stranger, gave a short, sharp bark and ran back. The General looked round and, seeing the stranger, took his bonnet from his head. Rosmead had then no alternative but to introduce himself. "My name is Rosmead, sir. I am here owing to correspondence with Mr. Cattanach." "Cattanach? Oh, yes--very decent fellow, Cattanach, but not a good writer. Have you seen my daughter, and has your horse been put up?" he said with all the fine dignity of the hospitable old laird, always ready to welcome the stranger within his gates. "We have only a hired trap, and it is waiting in the stable-yard. We have to get back to catch the four-thirty train." "Oh, yes. Well, you will see my daughter, and you will at least have some tea before you go away. Can I direct you back to the house? I was taking my walk in the sun. I am not so strong as I was, and I have to choose my days. That is what we have to come to, sir,--we choose our days, when they are not chosen for us. Well, if you can find your way back to the house, I shall continue my walk." He touched his bonnet and turned away, as if he had dismissed the man and the incident from his mental vision.