The Last of Their Race

by Annie S. Swan

All her high colour had faded, her eyes were dimmed with weeping, she had forgotten to take a pride in her beautiful hair, she looked what she was--a dishevelled and broken creature on whom even a hard heart must needs have had compassion. And Isla's heart was not hard any more.

"Well, you see, Miss Mackinnon," she said, wiping her eyes with her sodden handkerchief, "you don't want to hear the whole story as to how we got to know each other in India and how fond he was of me and I of him. So I'll hurry on to where I met you first. I came to Scotland then, because he hadn't written to me for such a long time and because, when I learned that his father had died and that he had come into the property, I thought it was time I looked after myself. He spoke very fair then--explained how hard up he was and what a tangle everything was in, and he promised that if only I'd wait other six months he'd make everything straight and right. He told me all that right down by the water at Strathyre that night when he rode down from here to see me--the night before you and I met on the London train. Well, I went back to London, because he asked me to trust him a little longer. But I was not very easy in my mind. I kept quiet, living on my little bit of money and doing a bit of needlework and going out occasionally with a friend, but never forgetting that some day I was to be lady here and wife to the man I loved. Then I saw the thing in the paper--that he was going to marry the American woman, and I think that I went mad for a bit. I don't know quite where I was or what I did. I only know that I rose and went to Scotland straight to the hotel at Lochearnhead, and in the afternoon I walked up to Achree and asked for Mrs. Rodney Payne."

"Oh!" said Isla with a little gasp, and she pressed her hand to her heart.

"You feel for her. Perhaps she's a friend of yours, but it had to be done. You don't know what it is to see another woman get hold of the man you care for and who belongs to you. I like you, and I pray God you may never know what it's like. Well, I told her just the whole story--the story I haven't told you, though you're sharp enough and can fill it all up.

"What did she say?--not much, but I could see that it finished him in that quarter, which was all I cared about.

"Well, then I sent for him. When he came he had seen her. I could tell it by the white despair on his face, and then I knew that it was not her money he wanted at all, but that he cared about her as he had never cared about me, that she was his own kind--the sort that would lift him right up and make the best of him.

"Something seemed to snap inside of me. I believe it was my heart that broke. I didn't reproach him. He did all the reproaching--there, in the dark, by that God-forsaken loch. We seemed to walk for hours, and I don't know where we were when he left me. He said his life was over, but I never thought or believed he would take it away. To tell you the truth, Miss, I didn't believe he had the courage to do it."

"You think he did it, then?" said Isla in a low, tense whisper.

"I know it. He simply went out in that boat, never meaning to come back. You and I know it, but we needn't tell. And anyway, perhaps it's better; only I wish it had been me--I wish it had been me!"

Her voice broke into a little wail, and she covered her face with her hands. Isla went to her side and laid her hand, which trembled very much, on her shoulder.