"I shall come before then, of course, and I am very sorry I have been so rude and unneighbourly," said Isla, and she meant what she said. "Do you mind walking round with me to the stable and putting your horse in? The accommodation is quite good, but there is no groom," she added with a small, pitiful smile which touched him inexpressibly. Her whole personality appealed to him. The grave, unimpressionable Hylton P. Rosmead, accounted by his colleagues one of the hardest-headed men of his time, was so moved by this woman, whom he had seen so few times, that he could have taken her in his arms there and then, and asked nothing better than to keep her for the rest of his life and hers. She was so sweetly natural and womanly, so altogether devoid of pretension that she appealed to every fibre in his being. He hated the artificiality of the women of his set--the smart women whom he had met in New York society and who were ready to make much of the "Bridge-builder," as they called him--and to pour the incense of their flattery upon him. But the atmosphere had always impressed him as being insincere, and he had often told his mother that if he ever married it would be in some very unexpected place. He knew now that he had found the place and the woman. All unconscious of what was passing in his mind, Isla led the way to the stables, stood by while he tied up his horse, and then walked back with him, pointing out the beauty of the situation and the incomparable view from the little plateau on which the house was built. "Now I wonder whether David Bain has ever come. I suppose you saw nothing of him on the road, Mr. Rosmead?" "Nothing. He was ahead of me, I am sure, because he is the most punctual person I have ever heard tell of. I have heard that in Glenogle they set their clocks by David." Isla passed into the house with a smile on her lips and, crossing the narrow hall, opened the door of the dining-room which her father used as a library and sitting-room. And there she stood just a moment as if frozen upon the threshold. Her father was not in his accustomed chair, but lay on the hearthrug, where he had evidently fallen with the page of an open letter grasped tightly in his hand. CHAPTER X THE HOUSE OF WOE Isla sprang forward and knelt down in a silence that could be felt. The old man lay slightly on his side, and Rosmead, as he too knelt down, saw at once that all was over. Isla’s white face and terrified eyes turned to him in swift appeal. "Will you take your horse and ride quickly for Dr. Blair? I left him at the keeper’s house at Rofallion. Any of them here will tell you where it is. And even if he is gone from there the people will know what direction he took." Rosmead rose to his feet, and on his face was a great and sad gentleness. "I will go if you wish, my dear, but it is useless. He is dead." Isla sprang up, and her eyes flashed.