His cool, firm palm touched her trembling hot fingers; she gave him a wistful look.
“Thank you—Jerome,” she said, and with a sweep of skirts was gone.
He noted the way she gave him his name as a great mark of confidence, and smiled quietly.
“So she is in love with that Highlander,” he said to himself, “and thinks her heart broken!”
He shrugged his shoulders; then yawned and picked the candle up.
“Perseus is remarkably obtuse,” he reflected. “Poor lady!” And he yawned again.
CHAPTER VI
HATE MEETS HATE
The Earl of Breadalbane bit his pen and stared thoughtfully out of the window at the gloomy shores of Loch Awe.
He sat in a small chamber contrived by a modern architect out of one of the Gothic halls of the old castle; it was well furnished and contained the luxuries (rare in the Highlands), of a carpet, wall-hangings and a sideboard with a mirror.
These things, however, were none of them new; the Earl’s chair showed the horsehair through the broken leather and the carpet in front of his bureau was worn threadbare; the Earl was a wealthy man and a proud, but above everything prudent; he kept his French furniture for Edinburgh and used here things that had served when he was merely Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy.