"I had some difficulty in preventing Marjorie and Sheila from coming down. If they hadn’t had a fitting for a Court frock they would have insisted on it. Sheila is going to be presented at the next drawing-room--on 7 May." "Oh!" said Malcolm, but his interest was of languid order. "Well, I’d better see about my stuff. I haven’t much. I sold out all I could before I left. There are always hard-up beggars in the regiment willing to buy, and I knew I shouldn’t want much in the glen." Again he spoke with airy inconsequence, as if nothing was of any great importance. Isla was quite conscious of a vivid and growing resentment. As she watched his strong, well-knit figure busy among the few traps which he was instructing one of the porters to collect, she wondered how he dared to be so regardless as he was. A grown man with a man’s strength and ability of a kind--yet nothing but a burden and a care to other folks, to frail folks like an old man and a young woman. The inequality and injustice of it imparted a most unusual hardness to her face. She was hardly disappointed, however, because Malcolm had always held his sins of omission and commission lightly and feared only their consequences. But in his heart of hearts he did feel his latest disgrace. A certain dogged dourness, however, would not permit him to show it. After his meagre baggage had been collected there was still no sign of the boat-train leaving, so they paced the platform from end to end, talking together in low, eager tones, indicative of the deep interest of the subject under discussion. "How long do you intend to stop in London?" he asked. "I only came down to meet you. I thought we might go home on Friday." "Oh well, if you like," he said, but she saw his face fall. "I don’t like to leave father any longer. He was very good about my coming, and Kitty Drummond was to go over to Creagh every day while I am away." "To Creagh, you say! Who’s there now, then?" "We are. I have let Achree to some rich Americans, and they went into residence yesterday, I believe, or at least partly. They are doing a lot to the house, but their tenancy dates from Easter." Malcolm stood still on the wooden pavement and stared at her in genuine dismay. "You’ve let Achree, you say! In Heaven’s name what for, and who gave you leave?" "Nobody gave me leave. I took it; and you are the last person who ought to ask why," she made answer rather passionately. "But--but--" he stuttered, "whatever did the governor say?" "He said very little one way or other. I’m not even sure if he grasped the fact. But at least he was quite pleased to go to Creagh." "To Creagh--to that little one-horse place! Do you mean to say that you propose to live there, then?" "We are living there," she answered steadily.