"My name is Rosmead, sir. I am here owing to correspondence with Mr. Cattanach."
"Cattanach? Oh, yes--very decent fellow, Cattanach, but not a good writer. Have you seen my daughter, and has your horse been put up?" he said with all the fine dignity of the hospitable old laird, always ready to welcome the stranger within his gates.
"We have only a hired trap, and it is waiting in the stable-yard. We have to get back to catch the four-thirty train."
"Oh, yes. Well, you will see my daughter, and you will at least have some tea before you go away. Can I direct you back to the house? I was taking my walk in the sun. I am not so strong as I was, and I have to choose my days. That is what we have to come to, sir,--we choose our days, when they are not chosen for us. Well, if you can find your way back to the house, I shall continue my walk."
He touched his bonnet and turned away, as if he had dismissed the man and the incident from his mental vision.
Rosmead immediately grasped the whole facts. He saw that the old man was wholly detached from the affairs of life, and more and more his heart ached with compassion for Isla Mackinnon. He walked right round the house, admiring its outline, even the huddled little towers touching his fancy, and he made up his mind on the spot that this should be his future dwelling-place. No matter what should be the price, he would pay it, because something told him that here was a place in which his money could be of use.
There was something deeper, however--the conviction that destiny had willed it that his life was somehow to be bound up with this old house and its inmates. The idea appealed to him and gave him a quickened interest in the place.
When he returned to the drawing-room in about ten minutes' time he found that it now contained four persons--his sister and their hostess and the two who had arrived to call.
"This is Mr. Rosmead, Kitty," said Isla, in whose face the pink spot of excitement burned again. "Miss Drummond, Mr. Neil Drummond, Mr. Rosmead."
Rosmead gravely saluted, but though Kitty beamed upon the handsome stranger, Neil was hostile. His face positively gloomed, and he had hardly a word to say.