"I have twenty pounds."
"Oh, you are in clover. It is not a dear fare to Wimereaux, even if you travel first class. And, of course, it will cost you nothing while you are there. They seem to be living at heck and manger for next to nothing, but how Uncle Tom does loathe it! I suppose you'll come back with them as far as Glasgow when they come north next month?"
"I suppose so," she answered listlessly.
There was no reason why she should either affirm or deny, because she herself did not know what she might do. Everything would depend. It might even be on the knees of the gods that she would drift to Wimereaux in the end.
"I've been to lunch at Achree," she said suddenly. "I met Miss Rosmead on the road, and she made me go in. Mrs. Rosmead looks very ill, I think."
"Nothing to what she did look. And they are so accustomed to snatching her back from the jaws of death," said Malcolm grimly, "that they are quite satisfied about her."
"Oh!" said Isla. "You go there a great deal, Malcolm. They seem to think you a splendid sort of fellow."
It was a curious speech and did not sound quite kindly. Malcolm, however, took it well, though there was a touch of bitterness in his reply.
"It's the people's way of looking at it, Isla--they are lovely people. They bring out all that is best in a chap and make him hate the worst. I'll tell you what. If I had been thrown with that sort at one time of my life I should have been a different man."
"We did our best," she answered with a wounded air. "Father and I were as good as we knew how, though, of course, we could not hope to reach the Rosmead standard."