‘A proper young fellow. He obliged me very greatly. Have you not met him? He has been at Whanland this fortnight past, I am told.’
‘No,’ said Fullarton, with his eyes on the flame, ‘never. I have never seen him.’
‘As I came by just now I saw the lights in Whanland House. It is a long time that it has been in darkness now. I suppose that sawney-faced Macquean is still minding it?’
‘I believe so,’ said the man, drawing his chair out of the circle of the light.
‘How long is it now since—since Mrs. Speid’s death? Twenty-eight or twenty-nine years, I suppose?’
‘It is thirty,’ said Robert.
‘It was a little earlier in the year than this,’ continued Lady Eliza. ‘I remember seeing Mr. Speid’s travelling-carriage on the road, with the nurse and the baby inside it.’
‘You build your fires very high,’ said Fullarton. ‘I must move away, or the cold will be all the worse when I get out of doors.
‘But I hope you will stay and sup, Fullarton. You have not been here since Cecilia came back.’
‘Not to-night,’ said he, rising; ‘another time. Present my respects to Cecilia, for I must go.’