Delia Featherstonehaugh shut the door on Jerome Caryl and her brother and began mounting the stairs of the quiet little house. She could hear the low murmur of the men’s voices through the frail door and a fine pencil of yellow light fell between the paneling onto the blackness without. Delia stood still a moment in an attitude of hesitation, then went on lightly and swiftly. At the top of the stairs she fumbled in the dark along the wall, found what she sought, a door-handle, turned it and entered. She was in a small room with a sloping roof and a deep bow-window; there was no light, but through this window poured a great flood of moonshine that showed the plaster walls, the simple wooden furniture and the figure of a man wrapped in a plaid, who leaned on his elbow at the window and gazed over the city. The rough outline of his profile was clear against the square of cold blue sky, and above the housetops above him hung the great white moon. Delia let the door slip into its latch with a click, and he turned his head. “You are longing to be away,” she said in her English Gaelic. “And why have you no light, Macdonald?” “I have no need,” he said mournfully. Delia gave a nervous little laugh and came up to him. “Why, you are well now,” she said, “and will soon be free—you have no need to brood in the dark.” He shook his head gloomily. “’Tis always dark to me,” he answered. “I would I had died.” There was a soft stir of satin as Delia seated herself on a wooden stool beyond the patch of moonlight; out of the shadows came her hesitating voice. “Do not talk so—we have a mission for you, my brother and I.” He made no answer, only dropped his head into his hand and stared at the moon. Delia locked her fingers together; she seemed to have to make an effort to speak, at last she told him of the discussion between her brother and Jerome Caryl, tried to put it forcibly and clearly and ended by offering him the mission of carrying the warning to the Highlands that they must take the oaths of submission to King William. He listened as if she spoke of something of no importance; the names of the rival kings, of the Master of Stair, had clearly no meaning to him, but he flushed when she mentioned Breadalbane. “The others may do what they will,” he flung out, “but the Macdonalds of Glencoe will never submit to a Campbell.” Delia strove, somewhat falteringly, to show him the unreasonableness of this; presently he said drearily: “For the sake of your bread that I’ve eaten, I will do your errand.” A silence fell. Delia put her foot forward into the moonlight, and watched the long shadow it made; she shivered once or twice for the room was cold. Ronald Macdonald seemed to have forgotten her the moment her voice ceased; she looked up at him and said, faintly: “You promised to tell me before you left, Macdonald, the adventure that brought you to the plight my brother found you in.” That appeared to rouse him; he looked round sharply.