She rested her weary head against the lintel of the door and again a curious smile moved her lips; she thought of the last time she had seen him and the present gray scene, the surrounding figures, the loud cursing of the Campbell name, the shrill talk of women, fell away from her. She recalled the little house in Glasgow and the coming of the Highlander, and Perseus, busy writing, plotting, coming to and fro, the even round of the days, excitement and the great hope ahead, the beacon to lead them on, recalled all this with curiosity and no regret even as she pictured the dead brother whom she had loved; once waiting idly in some great house, she had noticed pictures on the walls, a carnival on the ice, a fruit shop, a lady with a fan, she could remember them now, every detail, and as impersonal as these did she see her life of a few months ago, quiet, pleasant pictures, rising in succession, till suddenly they were shattered into darkness and one rose that blotted them out, one figure, one face. In her recital she had not named the Master of Stair; she had blamed Breadalbane, the Campbells, the government, but she had not named the name of the man whom she knew to be behind it all; she had not hinted that the hand of the Master of Stair was guiding Breadalbane, all of them, that his will and his power were behind the redcoats marching for Glencoe. They brought her to the fire and made her lay aside her cloak and warm her cold hands; and showed her rough hospitality. She obeyed silently and sat down meekly in the heavy peat reek with a lassitude not to be explained; as if there were no momentous hour at hand, as if her life ran smoothly ahead, as if there were no white faces and eager voices about her, as if no army was marching nearer, with the slow fading of the light, nearer. One of the women brought her some milk, and came and kissed her hand and blessed her; she took no notice of either; she was picturing a finely-dressed lady, who held out a miniature from the end of a mauve ribbon. “My children.” She heard the words again and saw the action, but again the thrill of exquisite anguish with which her own words had come: “How like!—how like!” So he had looked when he had bargained with her; when he had given her his word for the safety of her friends; so, too, had he looked when he had betrayed them, only perhaps then he had smiled, he had contemplated her hanged or beheaded and most probably had smiled; he had thought of her utter folly and lifted his shoulders in contempt; and she, the woman who had the picture of his children hanging round her neck, perhaps he had told her something and she had also smiled—or pitied. These thoughts had been her companions during her journey; they would not be shaken off now. As ghosts they grinned through the peat smoke. Unbearable, they became at last; she went to the door and watched the clan assemble.