"You don't know him, and I can't explain. Yet I tell you that I couldn't spoil one of that dear lad's happy days unless--" she broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the image on the mantelshelf. "He carved that devil up there," she went on with the smile gaining on the tears. "The professor said it was a savage conception of fate, but it isn't. It is Rick Halmar's conception of my fate, and that--well, that hasn't much of the devil in it. Come! it is time I was returning to my duties as hostess."
"Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me."
"Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously.
"I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-assault case."
"Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days."
"Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so."
Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room.
"I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon."
"Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay."
"A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!"