As the mourners fell away slowly from the grave-side some one touched his arm.
"I shall be glad if you will drive back to Achree with me, Mr. Rosmead," said the voice of Sir Thomas Mackinnon. "I should like to have a little talk with you."
This was noted by the curious, and it was afterwards said that more attention could not have been paid to the American if he had been sib to the Mackinnons. But there was not one who added that the attention was misplaced.
"A sad affair, isn't it, for those who are left?" said Sir Thomas as they drove slowly away, "for my niece especially. You see, her father was her life-work, so to speak, and now that it is taken out of her hands she will feel stranded for a bit."
"Miss Mackinnon is one who will always find something to occupy her heart and her hands," said Rosmead.
Uncle Tom assented.
"They tell me you have Achree on an option, Mr. Rosmead," he said--and it was evident that that was the thing uppermost in his mind. "I hope that you like the place, and feel minded to stop on."
"I should like to, but I have not yet had any conversation about it. I shall have to see Mr. Mackinnon to-day, as I leave Scotland on Thursday."
"You leave Scotland? But I understood that you were here indefinitely."
"No. The business which brought me is concluded, and there is work lying to my hand in America."