Then she could think! Oh, her plan was a very simple one, involving little thought,--first that house down the water, on the very edge of the river, where Andrew’s brother lived. It was as quiet a place as heart could desire, and a very nice room, where in her good days, in Robbie’s boyhood, in the time when there were often visitors at the Hewan, she had sent any guest she had not room for. Down the steep bank behind on which the Hewan stood, you could almost have slid down to the little house in the glen. There would be very little risk there. Robbie and he could see each other, and nobody the wiser; and then, after he was well rested, he would see the danger of staying in a place like the Hewan, where anybody at any moment might walk up to the door. And then the place must be chosen where he should go. If he would but go quiet to one of the islands, and be out of danger! Mrs Ogilvy’s mind was very much set on one of the islands; I cannot tell why. It seemed to her so much safer to be surrounded by the sea on every side. If he would consent to go to St Kilda or some place like that, where he would be as safe as a bird in its nest. Ah! but St Kilda--among the poor fisher-folk, where he would have no one to speak to. A chill came over her heart in the middle of her plans. Would he not laugh in her face if she proposed it? Would he go, however safe it might be? Did he care so much for his safety as that? She wrung her hands with a sense of impotence, and that all her fine plans, when she had made them, would come to nothing. She might plan and plan; but if he would not do it, what would her planning matter? If she planned for Robbie in the same way, would he do it? And she had no power over this strange man. Then after demonstrating to herself the folly of it, she began her planning all over again.