“My brother. He iss an agent for King James in London, and he brought me with him. But he was called away, and he left me with the gillie. To-night they broke into my room while Hamish was away, weary fa’ the day! And now where shall I go?”
“My sister is a girl about your age. Cloe would be delighted to welcome you. I am sure you would like each other.”
“You are the good friend to a poor lass that will never be forgetting, and I will be blithe to burden the hospitality of your sister till my brother returns.”
The sharp tread of footsteps on the stairs reached us. A man was coming up, and he was singing languidly a love ditty.
| “What is love? ’Tis not hereafter, Present mirth has present laughter, What’s to come is still unsure; In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me sweet and twenty. Youth’s a stuff will not endure.” |
Something in the voice struck a familiar chord in my memory, but I could not put a name to its owner. The girl looked at me with eyes grown suddenly horror-stricken. I noticed that her face had taken on the hue of snow.
“We are too late,” she cried softly.
We heard a key fumbling in the lock, and then the door opened—to let in Volney. His hat was sweeping to the floor in a bow when he saw me. He stopped and looked at me in surprise, his lips framing themselves for a whistle. I could see the starch run through and take a grip of him. For just a gliff he stood puzzled and angry. Then he came in wearing his ready dare-devil smile and sat down easily on the bed.
“Hope I’m not interrupting, Montagu,” he said jauntily. “I dare say though that’s past hoping for. You’ll have to pardon my cursedly malapropos appearance. Faith, my only excuse is that I did not know the lady was entertaining other visitors this evening.”
He looked at her with careless insolence out of his beautiful dark eyes, and for that moment I hated him with the hate a man will go to hell to satisfy.