CHAPTER IV
Keith ventured nearer. “Why is it so difficult? You trusted me that night.” His own voice was not much less moved than the Highlander’s. “I am not changed: it is circumstances which have brought about this horrible situation.”
The head stirred, but did not raise itself. “Yes . . . that night I thought you . . . generous, kind, charitable beyond anything that could be imagined. . . . It was not what I should have expected from you. Afterwards I saw what a simpleton I was to think you could have done all that for me without some very good reason . . . for by that time next day I had learnt what that reason was.”
“Is it fair, is it just,” pleaded Keith, “to believe what a brute, and my enemy, said of me behind my back rather than to judge me by my own actions, Ardroy?”
“You were . . . too humane,” said the voice dully. “And you did ask me about Lochiel . . .”
“And must I have had an ill motive behind my humanity, as you call it? You cannot say I pressed you for information about your Chief!”
“But you found out that I had it!”
It was so difficult to answer this that Keith did not attempt it. “What motive, then,” he urged, “brought me hastening back here, into disgrace, into complete ruin, perhaps? Is there nothing in your own heart to tell you? When you hear that I have been broke for neglecting my duty and offending my superior officer on your behalf, Ardroy, will you still think that I betrayed you to Major Guthrie?”
Ewen raised his ravaged face. “Will you swear to me on your word of honour that you never told him that I knew Lochiel’s hiding-place?”