But she did not yet know how she was going to prevent the crowning act of the tragedy of Malcolm's life.
"Tragedy" was the word Isla used to herself as the whole story beat upon her brain where she lay, tossing sleepless in her noisy bedroom, disturbed by the shriek of the trains, the long dull roar of life in the Euston Road, and, above all, by the phantoms of her own sad heart.
How easily, by putting a few adroit questions, could she have wiled the whole story from her fellow-traveller's lips! It was not her pride alone that had prevented her from asking these questions. She was afraid.
She fell asleep with one last haunting thought in her mind--how much happier than she were the Mackinnons who slept their last dreamless sleep on the Braes of Balquhidder.
CHAPTER XX
THE REALITY OF THINGS
Towards the morning Isla fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, from which she did not awake till half-past ten o'clock.
A sense of confusion and dismay swept over her when she realized how late it was, until she remembered that, in her scheme of things, time just then was of no consequence.
Certainly she had things to do, but the hour of their doing mattered to no man or woman. She was alone, she was free, this day and other days were in front of her to do with what she willed.
She sprang up, rang for hot water, and, pulling up the blind a little way, looked out upon streets bathed in a flood of glorious autumn sunshine. Somehow, it comforted her that London did not weep at her coming. It seemed an augury of good will. She had not known how physically tired she was until she had stretched herself on her bed. And now, her strength fully restored by sleep, her spirit became less craven.