“Wait!” Dr. Prescott gave the command as the old Scotsman raised his arm to pull the chord. “Someone’s coming!”
With one impulse, everyone in the room turned toward the door. They were all tense as it was opened from without and a group of villagers entered with Robert Hugh Blake in their midst!
“I tell you,” he was protesting, “I don’t know where the lassie is.” His eyes were wild and staring as he spoke. “I tell you I don’t——” He broke off his sentence when his eyes lighted on his brother. His whole attitude changed. “James, I don’t know where she is,” he almost whimpered.
James Blake stepped over to his brother’s side. He motioned to the others in the room to keep quiet.
“There, there, Bobby,” he spoke as he would to a child, “Of course you don’t know where she is now. But where was she when you last saw her?”
“Down in the old gatehouse at the foot of the hill.” Robert Blake answered. He was accustomed to obeying his brother. “But I didn’t hurt her, not at all.” His voice was earnest as he spoke and so sincere, that even Dr. Prescott, worried as she was, believed him.
“I was there playing on the bagpipe,” he continued, “as I always do, when she came in through the door. I swear that that’s the truth. She sat and talked to me for a long time. She’s a sweet little lassie. Then I excused myself and went out for something, telling her that I would be right back. But I locked the door behind me. I was going to keep her there until it was too late for you to find her, but I had forgotten something——” he paused as though he couldn’t remember what it was.
“Your bagpipe,” James Blake supplied.
“Yes, that was it. It was my bagpipe,” he went on looking at his brother throughout his confession. “When I opened the door again, she wasn’t there! How she got away I don’t know.”
“Well, I do!” James Blake’s exclamation fell like a thunderbolt on the rapt listeners. “I know where she is,” he repeated, “And I’ll have her here in a minute now!”