Yielding on this point with what she hoped was the wisdom of the serpent, Miss Cameron then returned to a subject much nearer her heart: Ardroy’s departure for France or Holland, which he would attempt, she assumed, as soon as he could hear of a likely vessel and was fit to undertake the journey to the coast.
“France?” queried Ewen, as if he had heard this suggestion for the first time. It was the fifth evening after his return; Miss Cameron was sitting knitting in the long parlour, and he stretched in a chair opposite to her. The windows were closely curtained, and young Angus MacMartin and a still younger brother prowled delightedly in the avenue keeping watch. “France, Aunt Margaret? What put that into your head?”
Miss Cameron laid down her knitting. “Because you cannot stay here, Ewen. And France is in my head rather than Holland or Denmark because—well, surely you can guess—because your wife is there.”
Ewen got out of his chair and limped to one of the windows. “I am not leaving Scotland at present,” he said quietly, and drew aside the curtain. “We need not therefore discuss the claims of one country over another.”
“You cannot mean to stay here at Ardroy! Ewen, are you daft? And, in the name of the Good Being, don’t show yourself at a lighted window like that!”
“’Tis so light outside that the candles do not carry,” returned her nephew. Indeed but for Miss Cameron’s prudence they would not have been sitting thus curtained, but in daylight. “Moreover no one will come to look for me here; the house has been ‘burnt,’” he went on, using the argument he had already used half a dozen times. And he continued to look out; at least Margaret Cameron thought that he was looking out. In reality he had his eyes shut, that he might not see Alison’s face—a vain device, for he saw it all the clearer.
His aunt was silent for a moment, for he had implanted in her mind a most disturbing doubt.
“Well,” she said at last dryly, “I should think that if Major Windham, to whom you owe so much, knew of this freak of yours, he would regret the sacrifices which he had made in order to save you, when this is the use to which you put your liberty.”
“I think Major Windham would understand,” said Ewen rather shortly.
“Understand what?”