"Sorry, old chap! I forgot for a moment. But it shan't occur again. I'll be off, Maud, and get along to Cynthia's. She'll have something to say about this, I daresay, and her Guv'nor will probably give me a leg-up in finding a job. I'm better out of this. Mr. Deland, you've been the unwilling victim of an unpleasant scene--and a family scene, which is most unpleasant of all. I must apologize to you. Had I foreseen anything of the sort, we would have postponed your luncheon until a later date. It might have been more agreeable for you. Good-bye, and I'm sorry I shan't see more of you. I'm clearing off now, Maud--you can send along my things later." Maud Duggan's eyes searched his face, a look in them of agonized question, as if she was unable to believe the evidence of her own ears. Then she ran to him and caught him suddenly by the arm. "Ross, dear, you mustn't be so hasty! You mustn't!" she entreated, squeezing his arm in her two hands as he looked down at her with his set, angry face. "You know Father, dear. He'll wish in half an hour, he'd bitten his tongue out sooner than spoken to you like that. You know he will. You're his first-born and his favourite--as you have always been. Try and see this thing clearly. Don't act in a hurry, dear. Just wait--wait until this evening, for my sake if not for your own. Don't leave me here to stick the thing out by myself. It isn't fair to me." That last plea seemed to strike home better than all the others had done, for the anger faded suddenly from his countenance, and he laid a hand against her cheek before swinging upon his heel. "Well, I'll think about it, and see what Cynthia says, anyhow," he replied, after a pause. "Only, I've reached the end of my tether, and human nature won't stand too much. Sorry, Miss McCall. Did I tread upon your foot? I'm so blithering angry I don't really know what I'm doing, so you must forgive me." And for the first time the company seemed aware that Johanna McCall had been a silent spectator of this family scene. For she had kept, as usual, as quiet as a mouse, only, Cleek observed as he looked at her, her eyes had blazed with that one light which no fire can quench, and she had shut them for a moment, as though to hide the secret they revealed from Ross Duggan's troubled face. "It's all right, really. And I'm so--awfully sorry, Mr. Duggan," she said in her soft, monotonous voice. "It is so unfair, so unjust! And please don't go--without saying good-bye--to me." Then she, too, turned upon her heel and fled out of the room. And suddenly Cleek saw one thing startlingly clear. Miss Duggan had mentioned "an attraction" in Johanna McCall's eyes. That was why she stayed on here at the Castle and endured so much. But she had given him to understand that it was Tavish. But it was _not_ Tavish who had inspired that unquenching fire in those pale eyes; it was _not_ Tavish who had set that hero-worshipping expression upon the plain, unattractive face.