A silence fell. Delia put her foot forward into the moonlight, and watched the long shadow it made; she shivered once or twice for the room was cold. Ronald Macdonald seemed to have forgotten her the moment her voice ceased; she looked up at him and said, faintly:
“You promised to tell me before you left, Macdonald, the adventure that brought you to the plight my brother found you in.”
That appeared to rouse him; he looked round sharply.
“Ye found me near to death, did ye not?” he demanded.
“You have been in great fever,” she answered softly. “Yes, very sick.”
“Ah!” He drew himself up in the window-seat and frowned reflectively. “I think she was a Campbell.”
“Who?” asked Delia, a little breathlessly.
He did not heed her question. “She was like none I have ever seen,” he went on. “I would have fought a clan for her—she wore a coat of the Saxon red, but she was of our country—a Campbell—was she a cursed Campbell?”
“Who was she?” said Delia again, still so faintly that he did not hear.
“Certainly she lied to me,” he continued moodily. “And ‘fair and false as a Campbell,’ they say—she fooled me. I would I had killed her before I let her fool me.”