"Mr. Williamson is out, my lord," the solemn functionary said, who was far more important and dignified than the master of the house. "I asked to see Miss Williamson," Lord Erradeen repeated, with a little impatience; and he saw the man's eyebrows raised. So far as the servants were concerned, and through them the whole district, Walter's "intentions" stood revealed. Katie Williamson was alone. She was in her favourite room--the room especially given over to her amusements and occupations. It was not a small room, for such a thing scarcely existed in Birkenbraes. It was full of windows, great expanses of plate glass, through which the mountains and the loch appeared uninterrupted, save by a line of framework here and there, with a curious open-air effect. It was in one of the corners of the house, and the windows formed two sides of the brilliant place; on the others were mirrors reflecting the mountains back again. She sat between them, her little fair head the only solid thing which the light encountered. When she rose, with a somewhat astonished air, to receive her visitor, her trim figure, neat and alert, stood out against the background of the trees and rocks on the lower slopes of the hills. A curious transparency, distinctness, and absence of privacy and mystery were in the scene. The two seemed to stand together there in the sight of all the world. "Lord Erradeen!" Katie said, with surprise, almost consternation. "But if I had been told, I should have come down-stairs to you. Nobody but my great friends, nobody but women, ever come here." "I should have thought that any one might come. There are no concealments here," he said, expressing the sentiment of the place unconsciously. Then, seeing that Katie's colour rose: "Your boudoir is not all curtained and shadowy, but open and candid--as you are." "That last has saved you," said Katie, with a laugh. "I know what you mean--and that is that my room (for it is not a boudoir--I never _boude_) is far too light, too clear for the fashion. But this is my fashion, and people who come to me must put up with it." She added, after a moment: "What did you say to Sanderson, Lord Erradeen, to induce him to bring you here?" "I said I wanted to see Miss Williamson." "That was understood," said Katie, once more with an increase of colour, and looking at him with a suppressed question in her eyes. Her heart gave a distinct knock against her breast, but did not jump up and flutter, as hearts less well regulated will do in such circumstances; for she too perceived what Sanderson had perceived, that the interview was not one to take place amid all the interruptions of the drawing-room. Sanderson was a very clever person, and his young mistress agreed with him; but, nevertheless, made a private memorandum that he should have notice, and that she would speak to papa. "Yes, I think it must be easily understood. I have come to you with a great deal that is very serious to say."