"I've been here before, you know," he mentioned as she ushered the little party into the first of an extensive suite of rooms at the far end of the corridor they had traversed. Sallie could scarcely repress the exclamation of pleasure that rose to her lips; for the rooms, all opening into each other and with the doors wide, stretched across the entire breadth of the building, so that their furthest windows looked straight out to sea. There was nothing between them and the wide Atlantic but a cluster of miniature islets, emerald-green, at the distant mouth of the loch.
"This was her late ladyship's favourite suite," said Mrs. M'Kissock precisely. "The outermost room was her boudoir once. But his lordship had that altered—afterwards."
Sallie listened like one in a dream. She could scarcely believe that these had once been her own mother's rooms, that this gaunt, austere serving-woman was stating matters of fact in that dry, lifeless voice of hers. She longed to get Mrs. M'Kissock alone and question her about—everything. But she had been warned by both Mr. Jobling and Jasper Slyne that she must contain every symptom of curiosity till they could grant her permission to speak for herself.
She passed, with a little, impatient sigh, from one range of rooms to another, each with its own tag of story or history duly related by Mrs. M'Kissock, until they reached the great hall again from a further passage, and very glad of her expert guidance through such a maze.
From there the housekeeper took them, by way of the central staircase and gallery up a steep corkscrew stair in a turret to the top of what had been the main tower before the North Keep had been built, and out on to the battlements, where the Spanish guns still stand guard, among a multitude of other obsolete pieces, including a carronade or two from the ancient foundry at Falkirk, over the equally futile suits of mail in the halls below.
She offered to show them the dungeons and torture-chamber and oubliette, on the way to the water-gate, but Mr. Jobling declared that it was too late by then to go underground that day, and she led them instead along the north corridor, through the late earl's private study and library and smoking-room, through a dozen other equally superfluous apartments, till they regained the corridor at the end where an open doorway led through into the spacious circular hall at the base of the North Keep.
"This part of the castle is private, sir," Mrs. M'Kissock informed Mr. Jobling, who had already stepped in.
"I'd like my friends to see the sunset from the Warder's Tower," he returned, "if you don't mind. We won't disturb anyone on our way upstairs."
Mrs. M'Kissock still looked uncertain, but Slyne had already followed the lawyer's lead and Captain Dove was calmly pushing past her. She glanced at Sallie again, and then bowed her also in. And they all proceeded quietly up the carpeted winding staircase, past several landings, the doors of which were closed.
But the door at the turret-top was wide, and Mrs. M'Kissock was obviously a good deal disturbed in her mind as Mr. Jobling stepped to one side and politely gave Sallie precedence out into the open air.