"Ah, Glengall is coming home soon?"
"He expects to reach Plymouth on the eighteenth. He will be at home for Christmas."
"There'll be nothing in order for him in that old barrack of his."
"He'll stay here while he's getting things straight. He is going to make a grand place of Glengall. He has plenty of money, and the heart to spend it, and the practical wit to direct it."
"What will he do with it then? He has neither chick nor child."
"There is always time, Miss Spencer."
The slightly mad, brooding look came back to the little wizened white face.
"Yes, of course, there is time," she said, dreamily. "I remember someone—who was it?—who knew Glengall when she was a young woman and he was a little boy. Glengall can't be old, of course, and any day people may return—mayn't they?"
"Why, to be sure they may. Glengall did, though he was twenty years out of the reach of civilisation."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Glengall. It was of someone much younger, someone about the age of that young gentleman there."