"I too seem to be stricken! I wish only one thing at this moment, Mr. Rosmead--that I could be lying dead beside my father." "Yes, yes, I understand. I was only fifteen when my father died--through a gun accident that might have been averted, and I remember the horror of it yet. But yours was an old man and full of years and honours. You should see him now! He reminds me of the shock of corn fully ripe. You must think of how he was beloved in all the glens, and how, after his long service, he has received his crown from the King." He spoke quite simply, and the hardness on Isla’s face slightly relaxed. "How kind you are! I shall never forget it!" "I have done nothing that the merest stranger might not have done better," he made answer. "What I feel now is that I dare not leave you here alone. If you could send some one down to Lochearn--or if you know where your brother is I will find him for you. It is imperative that you should not be left here alone." "I don’t know where he is, and he shall not come in here!" she cried a little wildly. "You don’t understand! Nobody understands except me, but he must not come in here." Rosmead did not know what to say, for tragedy was in the air. "Come," he said gently, laying a slightly compelling hand on her arm. "Let me take you upstairs. It will do you good. He looks so beautiful and so gloriously at rest. If only you will let your mind dwell on that, half the bitterness will be gone--on that and on the fact of your long and beautiful devotion to him, which has been the wonder of all the glens." Rosmead hardly knew himself, and certainly those who knew only one side of Peter Rosmead would have been amazed to hear him now. Isla obeyed him without the smallest demur, and when she entered the room with the drawn blinds, and looked at the still figure on the bed with the majesty of death on the noble face her tears began to flow. And for that Rosmead thanked God. She was like a little child in his hands then, begging him not to leave her; and his tenderness, his forethought, his encompassing care were like those of a kind elder brother. But that came to an end with the sudden, swift arrival of some fresh person at the door and with the sound of Malcolm’s loud--somewhat aggressive--voice, calling his sister by name. Rosmead stood aside while she walked steadily from the room, and he very heartily wished that it were possible for him to escape by some back staircase. He had no desire to witness what he felt must come. Isla sped swiftly down the stairs, and on the downmost step she paused and pointed an accusing finger at her brother. "Murderer!" she said. "Don’t come a step farther. You have no right in this house, which you have destroyed!" Malcolm looked thunder-struck, and the sight of Rosmead a few steps higher up the stair did not help to lessen the mystery. "Why, what has happened, and why is Mr. Rosmead here? What is it?" he demanded peremptorily.