“Why not send for the soldiers?” she repeated at length. “They are dangerous to-night—these people.”
He lifted his shoulders contemptuously.
“I am not afraid of them. It is no more than they have done before. I was never a favorite of the mob.”
“Yet these are in earnest—this question of Glencoe—”
He turned on her.
“Madam—do not let me hear that word. An insensate party cry—begun by the Jacobites; spread by my enemies—a meaningless parrot call—what is Glencoe to me? An act, two years old—a thing cursedly bungled or Hamilton had not left any alive to start this howl.”
“Yet the King has ordered an inquiry and appointed a commission, has he not?”
The Earl smiled bitterly.
“Madam, my enemies have forced the King to head the stronger party—what does he know of it? Nothing.”
The servant entered with his master’s hat and cloak; Lady Stair rose with a faint color in her cheeks and drew her hood around her face.