“But you have not restrained your belongings,” she observed boldly.
He was so much taken aback that he said nothing.
“Well, my lord, it is one of my regrets that I have never seen Captain Logie. At least you have to be proud of a gallant man,” she went on, with the same impulse that makes all humanity set a fallen child upon its legs.
But Balnillo had a genius for scrambling to his feet.
“My brother has left the country in safety,” he rejoined, with one of those random flashes of sharpness that had stood him in such good stead. His cunning was his guardian angel; for he did not know what she knew—namely, that Archie had left Fort Augustus in pursuit of James.
“Indeed?” she said, silenced.
She was terribly disappointed, but she hid her feelings in barefaced composure.
The judge drew his chair closer. Here was another opening, and his very nervousness pushed him towards it.
“Ma’am,” he began, clearing his throat, “I shall not despair of presenting James to you. When the country is settled—if—in short——”
“I imagine that Captain Logie will hardly trust himself in Scotland either in my lifetime or in yours. We are old, you and I,” she added, the bitterness of her disappointment surging through her words.