Isla jumped up with her colour fluttering and threw down her paper.
"It's very hot in here, isn't it? Excuse me, but I must go out into the corridor for a little fresh air. I can't stand the heat any longer."
"Oh, poor dear, have a drop of brandy! They do have uncommon good spirits at Strathyre, but then, it's the dew of their own mountains, isn't it? Do have a drop, dearie. It'll buck you up at once."
"No, no, thank you!" cried Isla over her shoulder from the corridor. "I never touch spirits. I only want to be quiet and not talk for the rest of the journey."
Mrs. Bisley looked disappointed, but she comforted herself with a drop of the dew of the mountains and then sat down to have a look at the papers.
Once Isla glanced back at her and, in spite of herself, had to admit the prettiness of her face. She looked about thirty-five, and had she been properly dressed she could have been made to look much more attractive. There was something winning about her, too, but--oh, the irony of fate that should have brought them together in that narrow space, from which it was impossible to escape!
Isla's abnormally quick perception had easily filled in the lines of the story. She had no doubt that the party referred to by her fellow-traveller was Malcolm. And that the woman believed that she had a right to him there could be no doubt. He had not admitted her claim, Isla concluded, else surely he could never have been so base as lift his eyes to Vivien Rosmead.
She felt sick as she pressed her throbbing head against the cold glass of the corridor window, enjoying the swish of the wind on her cheek.
Should she never get away from the shadows which had darkened her life? Was it ordained that she should be pursued, far beyond the limits of Glenogle, by the sordid phantoms of Malcolm's past and present? Was fate wholly inexorable--were poor human beings but puppets, liable to be rudely moved hither and thither upon the boards of the stage of life? If it were so she might as well go back and fight it out on the Moor of Creagh.
"Feelin' better, my dear?" said Mrs. Bisley kindly, when she presently turned her head. "The first lunch will be comin' along immediately, and that'll make you feel better."