Malcolm certainly at this moment wished to do it, if only he knew how. He didn't want to leave Glenogle, still less did he want to live under one roof with his sister. If she refused to leave the Glen he would have no alternative but to go, and what would be the upshot of it all?
Near to midnight he was still pondering this mighty and seemingly insoluble problem when the library door was silently pushed open and Isla in a white dressing-gown, with her long hair tied lightly back and hanging loosely on her shoulders, came in. Her face looked ghastly pale against the whiteness of her wrap, and her eyes were shining like stars.
"I heard Uncle Tom go up to bed, Malcolm, and I thought I'd better come down."
"The fire has gone low," he said, as he sprang up to vacate the most comfortable chair. "Here's a log. We'll get a blaze in a minute. Sit down here."
She sat down on the extreme edge of the chair and watched him a little wistfully while he attended to the fire.
"I thought, perhaps, we had better have a little talk about what we are going to do," she said a trifle unsteadily. "There is nothing but Creagh. The question is--Can it hold us both?"
"Don't speak like that, Isla," he said almost pleadingly. "But really Uncle Tom's plan is the best, considering all things. Couldn't you make up your mind even yet to go to London with him, if it were only for a few days?"
Isla shook her head.
"I couldn't, Malcolm. Aunt Jean and the girls would drive me crazy just now. Don't even mention it again. I--I just want to ask you whether it wouldn't be better to tell Uncle Tom the truth about how you left the army before he goes to-morrow? You know how impulsive he is. He will think nothing of going straight to the War Office or to the Commander-in-Chief, if he can find him, the moment he gets back to London."
Malcolm's face fell.