"Suffer!" she cried shrilly. "You don't know--no one will ever know what he suffered just then."
Unconsciously her hand touched the fold of her blouse where the letter lay. "He had a shock--yes, and it was the one thing to avoid. Oh, I have watched him all these years so that nothing came near him! But I was powerless against this evil thing that killed him at the last!"
Rosmead made no answer, understanding that she was distraught and spoke freely of that which her normal self would not have so much as mentioned in his presence.
His one concern was to get her out of the room, so that the last sad offices might be done and Mackinnon of Achree composed in the dignity of his last sleep. He managed it at last, for even with all his gentleness he was masterful. Then with his own hands he helped, guiding the tearful, but anxious and willing servants so that in a short time the death-chamber was prepared, the fair linen ready, and all done decently as it ought to be.
When he got down to the library Isla was sitting by the table, with her elbows on it, staring into space. The expression on her face hurt him. It was not woebegone, nor yet was it grief-stricken. It was only hard like the nether millstone. He understood that he had come within touch of the tragedy of these broken lives, but not an atom of curiosity stirred in him. His only concern was for her.
She looked round with a little shivering breath, and her lips essayed to move.
"I too seem to be stricken! I wish only one thing at this moment, Mr. Rosmead--that I could be lying dead beside my father."
"Yes, yes, I understand. I was only fifteen when my father died--through a gun accident that might have been averted, and I remember the horror of it yet. But yours was an old man and full of years and honours. You should see him now! He reminds me of the shock of corn fully ripe. You must think of how he was beloved in all the glens, and how, after his long service, he has received his crown from the King."
He spoke quite simply, and the hardness on Isla's face slightly relaxed.
"How kind you are! I shall never forget it!"