Now and again his eyes would rest upon her, questioning. But shut out from his night watch on the tower; shut out by day from their former intimacy by his every speech and gesture, Ellinor’s feminine sensibility always overcame her clear head and her generous heart. A few days dragged by thus; slow, stiff, intolerable days. At last Lady Lochore threw off the mask insolently. Towards the end of their late breakfast, after an hour of yawns and sighs and pettish tossing of the good things upon her plate, she suddenly requested of her brother, in tones that made of the request a command, permission to invite some guests. “Bindon shrieks for company,” said she, “and, thanks as I understand, to Mrs. Marvel, it is fairly fit to receive company. And, I know you like frankness, brother, I will admit I am used to some company.” She flung a fleering look from Ellinor’s erect head to the alchemist’s bent, rounded crown. (Master Simon was deeply interested in Lady Lochore’s case, and as he entertained certain experimental schemes in his own mind, sought her company at every opportunity: hence his unwonted appearance at meals.) Sir David slowly turned an eye of ironic inquiry upon his sister; but his lips were too polite to criticise. “Anything that can add to your entertainment during your short stay here,” said he, “must, of course, commend itself to us.” Had Ellinor been less straitened by her own passionate pride, she might have stooped to pick up solace from that little plural word. “Then I shall write,” said Lady Lochore, with her usual toss of the head. “If you’ll kindly send a rider into Bath—there are a few of my friends yet there, I learn by my morning’s _courier_—I’ll have the letters ready for the mail.” Sir David went on slowly peeling a peach. For a while he seemed absorbed in the delicate task. Then, laying down the fruit, but without looking up from his plate, he said: “I presume, before you write those letters that you intend to submit the names of my prospective guests to me.” Lady Lochore flushed. She knew to what he referred; knew that there was one guest to which the doors of Bindon would never be opened in its present master’s lifetime. She was angry with herself for having made the blunder of allowing him to imagine for a moment that she was plotting so absurd a move. She hesitated, and then, with characteristic cynicism: “What!” she cried, “do you think I want that devil here? No more than you do yourself.” “Hey, hey!” cried Master Simon, startled from some abstruse cogitation. Still Sir David looked rigidly down at his plate. “God knows,” pursued the reckless woman, “it’s little enough I see of him now—but that is already too much!” She paused, and yet there was no answer. Then with her scornful laugh: