The Last of Their Race

by Annie S. Swan

"There is a machine of some kind at the door, Mr. Rosmead. Don't you see the lights?" she said rather excitedly. "I wonder who it can be at this time of night. It must be nearly nine o'clock.'

"Close on it. Probably it is some neighbour calling on your brother."

"It might be Mr. Drummond from Garrion. I know of nobody else who would take the trouble," said Isla.

A minute later she proved her surmise to be right. The high-stepping Garrion roans were champing their bits and pawing the ground in front of the narrow doorway.

Rosmead sprang down and with great tenderness helped Isla to alight.

"You will come in of course, as you wish to see my brother."

"I will come in if you desire it, but I do not forget that older friends may have the prior right, Miss Mackinnon."

"I do desire it. It will be a help to me," she said.

And together they passed over the threshold. Diarmid hastened out to meet them, and behind, from the library, came Malcolm and Neil Drummond.

Rosmead, while apparently observing nothing, took note of two things--the curious, half-shrinking, half-defiant expression on Malcolm Mackinnon's face, and the distinct antagonism that marked the manner of Neil Drummond towards himself.