Cattanach nodded gravely.
Then she put another question to him of a more disconcerting kind.
"Mr. Cattanach, why are men usually dismissed from the Army? What are the offences, I mean? They must be grave, of course, because it is so serious a thing to cut short a man's career at the very commencement."
"It is a serious thing, and it is not done on trifling grounds," he answered quietly, not dreaming of evading her question. "What your brother says about injustice is, of course, nonsense. It exists in small things in the Army, as elsewhere, but it would never reach the length of, as you say, cutting short a man's career."
She sighed a little as she rose to her feet. He had not specified, but she was answered.
"It is all very dreadful, and it would certainly kill my father if he knew. Happily--how strange it is that I can use the word in relation to what has been such a sorrow to me, but happily--his failing faculties don't permit him to grasp the affairs of life. He understands that Malcolm is coming home, and he is full of wrath at the amount of leave allowed in the service in these days. It will thus be all right for a little while, but if Malcolm is to live on as a loafer," she said with a sad inflexion of scorn in her voice, "he will be troubled about it. Oh, Mr. Cattanach, what is to be done with Malcolm?"
Her brave voice shook, and again there was in her eyes that agony of appeal which a far less kind-hearted man than Cattanach could not have resisted.
"Dear Miss Mackinnon, the trouble is very real and awful, but it is not on us just yet. Let us get the question of the tenancy of Achree settled, and then we shall have time to tackle the other. The Rosmeads wish to get settled in the place before Easter. Would that be possible?"
"I shall make it so, and I want to be at Creagh before Malcolm arrives. He would create all sorts of difficulties, and it will be far better to get the people into Achree before then."
"And your father?"