She had now a black frock on, but, in contrast with Isla's neat, trim, well-fitting suit of home-spun, it looked badly cut, badly worn, altogether unsuitable for a journey. There were quantities of white net--not too clean--about her neck, and many brooches and a long chain, on which hung a lorgnette, while a double eyeglass was pinned to her bosom. She wore a great many rings of sorts and a wedding one.
Isla's eyes were quick enough to detect that.
"Goin' all the way?" she asked with an engaging smile.
Isla nodded.
"So am I, and jolly glad I'll be to hear the noise and smell the good old smells of the Euston Road. How they live up there! But there--it ain't livin', is it now? Would you call it livin'--eh?"
"Well," said Isla, diverted in spite of herself, and feeling no longer the appalling dread that pursued her in Glenogle regarding this very woman, "it depends on what you call living."
"Just so. Well, I like a bit of fun myself--a night out occasionally and a bit of stir in the daytime. Them hills, and big, dark locks get on my nerves. I was four days at the little hotel at Strathyre, and I had just about enough of it."
"Visiting friends in the neighbourhood?"
"No," snapped the woman. "It was a bit of business I was on, and it was last night before I saw the party I had to see. Not but what I was comfortable there, and they do make good food. Ever stopped there? They tell me they hadn't an empty bed from Easter till now--full up with fishermen and that sort. Can't understand it--don't pretend to. It's the silence--the big empty silence that gets at me. It would drive me crazy in a month, and I'd be gettin' up in my sleep and wanderin' into that water."
"You would get used to Strathyre," said Isla, smiling a little as she raised her paper, and hoping that there might now be a reprieve.