"Isla, I hate to say it, but it is what I feel. I’m beastly jealous of these American outsiders. You must not let them absorb you. Of course we know that their money can do a lot of things. We can’t all afford thousand pound motors for quick transit, but our hearts are in the right place and we’d go down on our knees to serve you--every one of us." Isla’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. "I know, Neil. Don’t trouble about it. They have been very kind. Of course I know that if you had had Achree you would have done just the same thing. Was that Malcolm calling? We had better go out." Neil opened the door, and they passed into the narrow hall again, where Malcolm and Rosmead stood together. For just the fraction of a moment nobody spoke. "Mr. Rosmead has told me of their great, unheard-of kindness, Isla," said Malcolm in a queer strained voice, "and we have arranged it all. To-morrow afternoon--late about six o’clock we shall take him down to Achree. Mr. Rosmead is to run his fast motor to Callander in the morning in order to make the necessary arrangements. I have told him we can’t thank him." "No," answered Isla very low, "we can’t." "That’s all right," said Rosmead cheerily. "Good night then, Miss Mackinnon. Go to bed and have a good sleep. Good night, Mr. Drummond." "Good night," said Neil, and he affected not to see the outstretched hand. Rosmead took no offence. He was too big-hearted, and perhaps he had an inkling of how it was with the young man. "I had better go, too, I suppose," said Neil a little stiffly, and Isla bade them both good night. When Malcolm returned from seeing them off he could not find Isla, and when he went upstairs her door was shut. He tapped lightly at it, and she opened it just a few inches. "You’ll excuse me to-night, won’t you, Malcolm?" she said gently but coldly. "I am very tired. I couldn’t discuss anything to-night. To-morrow we can talk things over, but I want just to say that I am sorry I spoke as I did this afternoon. He would not have liked it, I am sure." Malcolm had not a word to say. He murmured good night and went downstairs to the lonely hearth, where he tried to extract some comfort from his pipe. But his quiet was disturbed by the low sound of his sister’s sobbing from the room above. CHAPTER XIII THE PASSING OF MACKINNON A chamber-maid at the St. Enoch’s Hotel in Glasgow brought a sheaf of letters to Rosmead along with shaving-water on Monday morning at half-past seven. He glanced over them with quick carelessness, and, finding one small, square, black-edged envelope, addressed in a handwriting that he did not know, he quickly broke the seal, which bore an unfamiliar coat of arms. Once more his pulses beat high, for this was the first time Isla Mackinnon had written to him, and over a man in love the handwriting of the woman he loves wields a surprising power.