Justin Carthew was standing as if thunderstruck by these extraordinary statements. His incredulous glance shifted from the stout stranger of the tinted eye and the inimical stare to the others of the little group regarding him, until it met Sallie's again, and they two looked blankly into each other's eyes while Mr. Jobling proceeded to introduce himself as her ladyship's legal adviser, and stated briefly the grounds on which his dogmatic assertion was based.

To Carthew, the lawyer's voice seemed to come from very far away, but none the less intelligibly, as he himself stood gazing at the girl to whom he owed his life, whom he had last seen late at night among the shadows on the deck of the Olive Branch in Genoa harbour. At first sight it had seemed so utterly impossible that it could be she who had stepped out on to the Warder's Tower of Loquhariot that he had supposed the sun in his eyes and a striking resemblance must have combined to delude him.

But—he knew now that it was really she. And as Mr. Jobling, concluding his homily, mentioned again who she claimed to be, he was dazedly thankful that he had not at once contradicted her lawyer; as he might have done—since he knew as a matter of fact that the real Lady Josceline Justice was dead.

Mr. Jobling had also repeated that Mr. Carthew was trespassing there. But at that Sallie turned on her legal adviser in generous indignation, and he shrank into the background again as she spoke.

"If this is my property, as you say it is," she flashed, "what right have you to tell any visitor that he is trespassing here! And if Mr. Carthew has been misinformed—"

"He isn't a visitor, Sallie. He's the man in possession at present," whispered the smartly-dressed young-old man who had been studying Carthew with a most supercilious expression, "and you'd better leave Mr. Jobling to deal with him." He was obviously not at all pleased with her, and his whisper was perfectly audible.

The girl had stopped to listen to him. "We're evidently the trespassers, then," she finished. "We have no business here at all while he remains in possession."

The other man of the party, a white-haired old fellow in clerical garb and wearing a pair of smoked glasses, also turned angrily toward her. But at that moment Mrs. M'Kissock came stumbling forward between them, with a little broken cry, all her habitual self-restraint vanished, her harsh features working, very near tears; and, lifting a hand of the girl's in both of her own to her lips, fondled it foolishly, muttering disconnected phrases.

"I knew—I knew it from the first," she mumbled, "and yet—I did not dare believe my own eyes. But now—God bless your bonny ladyship! And God be thanked for that you have at last come back to your own! Loquhariot has waited very long for this late day, and—

"Say ye now there's a man in possession!" she spoke up, glancing defiance at the individual in the Norfolk suit and then, though with less of disfavour, at Justin Carthew. "Say ye so?—and to me, who have kept the keys of the empty Castle of Loquhariot for her ladyship here, ever since the Red Earl her father laid that trust on me from his death-bed!

"You have been ill-informed. There is no man in possession here."

Carthew was staring at her as if he were altogether at his wits' end. He almost doubted the evidence of his own ears. Had he not known as a matter of fact that Lady Josceline Justice was dead, old Janet M'Kissock's spontaneous championship of this pretender would almost have convinced him to the contrary. He could feel sure of only one further fact, which was that Sallie herself had been tricked into her impostor's part.

However, he had no time just then to come to any further conclusion. He had to decide at once what he should do to safeguard her, and did so, recalling only the debt he owed her.

"There has evidently been some mistake," said he, looking levelly into her troubled eyes. "I hope you won't hold me to blame for that. And, believe me, I'm very glad that you have come to Loquhariot."

He could say no more than that at the moment. He bowed to her, and, turning into the turret doorway, limped off downstairs. He wanted to be alone for a little. He wanted time to think. He felt absolutely stunned.

Mrs. M'Kissock, no less perturbed, her cap all awry, followed him down the winding stairway as far as the door of the rooms he had only occupied for a day or two.

"I'm going to remove to the inn," he said, in answer to her agitated excuses and explanations. "It will be better so in the meantime. Will you tell one of the men to take my baggage there for me, please?"

He did not deem it advisable just then to ask her any question or make any comment at all. And within another minute or two he had passed out of the postern, surrendering the Castle of Loquhariot, for the time being, to one who had no claim or title to it.

But, as he stopped beyond the drawbridge to light the pipe he had mechanically pulled out, he pursed up his lips as though to whistle. And, "What proof can I produce!" he exclaimed, moving on again with the cold pipe between his teeth, his head bent, perplexed to the last degree.

The walk through the darkling woods to the village and the cold, clean air cleared his wits a little. He found Ambrizette huddled over the fire in the best room at the Jura Arms, and, having bespoken supper and a bed for himself, went on along the shore road to think things out, if he could.

Only half an hour before, he had been congratulating himself on the fact that his troubles were nearing an end. And now—

"It's been nothing but trouble ever since I first saw that damned advertisement," he remarked to himself, recalling step after painful step of the way he had travelled to where he was.

A few months before he had seen and answered an anxious advertisement in an American paper for any surviving relative, no matter how distant, of the Jura family, he had invested all of his scarce capital in a cattle-run in Texas which seemed to promise to pay quick profits. And, in spite of all that the English lawyers who had replied to his letter could say to tempt him, he had remained quite firm in his wise resolution to stay there and reap those profits before crossing the Atlantic in pursuit of his further fortune; until a smart junior partner of theirs had paid him a flying visit at the ranch, and proved to him how foolishly he was acting against his own interests.

For it seemed, after due investigation and proof positive of his distant kinship with the family, that there could be only one life between him and the title of Earl of Jura, with all that pertained thereto—a life which even the very conservative English Court of Chancery was by then disposed to presume extinct.

The astute young lawyer had told Carthew all the facts which his firm had managed to ferret out concerning the late countess's disappearance and death. It seemed, humanly speaking, impossible that her child could have survived her. Justin Carthew had thought it all over and an accident had settled the question for him. His pony came down with him one day and he was badly trampled by the steers he had been heading. His doctor sentenced him to six months' rest—out of the saddle. As soon as he was able to move he raised a mortgage on the ranch and made for London. That mortgage was almost due by now, and his expected profit on the run had faded into a stiff loss during his absence.

Messrs. Bolder & Bolder, the lawyers aforesaid, had made it clear to him from the first that, while they had the utmost faith in the outcome of their exertions on his behalf, they could not see their way to place their services and special knowledge at his disposal except on a spot-cash basis; that, in short, he must provide in advance the money to foot their bill. He had done so, and they, in return, had not failed to implement all their promises. Even now he could not feel that they had dealt unfairly by him.

And the balance of his bank account had been eaten up by his expedition to Africa in search of more authentic record of the ex-dancer countess's death and as to the fate of her child. He had taken that somewhat rash step, too, of his own free will and for his own personal satisfaction. He was personally aware now that both the countess and her daughter were dead; but—he could bring forward no proof at all of that fact, and, as Bolder & Bolder had politely pointed out to him, his personal testimony alone was that of an interested party and worthless to them or anyone else.

He had suffered sorely, both body and mind, since he and his party had been betrayed into El Farish's hands by an Arab guide. And now—

He was a penniless peer of the United Kingdom, with every prospect of being unable to maintain those rights which he knew were his, an impecunious citizen of the United States, with a foreclosure threatening him there. The result of all his own efforts so far was failure.

And yet, he felt that he ought to be thankful that he had come through alive. "A living dog is better than a dead lion," he told himself. "And—I owe that girl my life. But for her, I'd be—" He shrugged his shoulders. It was not pleasant, there in the dark, to recall that hole in the sand on the African coast which he had only escaped by a hairbreadth, thanks to her.

"I wouldn't be here at all," he reflected. "And that fat lawyer of hers would see her settled into my place without any fuss. He said, in fact, that the Chancery Court had practically admitted her claim to it already.

"And now—how am I to get up and swear she's a fraud! How am I to repay all I owe her—by fighting her for another man's leavings!"

He halted, to fill his pipe, and found it full. He lighted it, and turned back toward the inn. It had just recurred to him that, even if he were disposed to fight her for his inheritance, there were very strong financial reasons as well as merely sentimental ones against that course. He was already in Bolder & Bolder's debt. He had had to apply to them by wire for his fare to London from Genoa. They had further defrayed the Court costs of that order of access to the archives of Loquhariot which Mr. Justice Gaunt had recently made in his favour, and had furnished him with a few pounds for subsequent expenses.

But they had taken the opportunity to mention, always politely, that they could go no farther than that beyond the terms of their original bargain: and that the next advance of cash must come from him to them.

In a word, he could not afford to fight either her or anyone else just then. And he had a very strong impression that the fat lawyer who had interposed between him and the girl would put up a protracted, expensive battle on her behalf.

"But some day I'll have a couple of rounds with him," Carthew promised himself. "Just at the moment—my hands are tied. And, what's more, the Courts are closed."

He sighed.

"I can't hurt her, in any case," he declared conclusively to the night. "I'm not much of a judge of girls, but—she's—

"I must just wait and see," he said to himself. "I'm helpless. And—I'm hers, anyhow, as I told her in Genoa. A promise is a promise, no matter what its keeping costs."

He looked up at the black bulk of the castle in the distance. Its numberless narrow windows were all aglow, and in a cresset on one tower a fire was burning brightly.

"She's taken possession all right," he cogitated. "But probably she doesn't even know that the beacon's been kindled."

As he limped through the village again, he could not but notice the unusual stir in its long single street. At every cottage door there was a whispering group staring up at the Warder's Tower. The sound of oars in haste reached his ears from across the loch. And he was aware of many inquisitive glances directed at him as he passed.

His simple supper was awaiting him in the best room of the little inn. The black dwarf had been sent for from the castle, the outwardly stolid and incurious maid-of-all-work informed him. He sat down by the fire, content for the moment as he recalled the glamour of the afterglow from the west and Sallie's grave glance.

He thought of nothing else throughout his meal, and afterwards, puffing at a cigar in the lamp-lit porch with a plaid about him to keep the cold out, could scarcely bring himself to consider his own precarious situation again. When he at last applied his mind to that he was somewhat dispirited.

He had only a few shillings left in his purse, and could not afford to stay where he was for more than a day or two. He was a stranger in a strange land, a land in which, as he had learned already, men in their prime had to compete keenly for work which might bring them in no more than four or five dollars a week: a very unpromising land in which to be left with empty pockets.

"Perhaps old Herries will give me a week or two's work at something or other about the estate," he communed with himself. "But, then,—that bloated lawyer would probably interfere; and, while I lie low, Herries will be under his thumb to a great extent. He's under the weather too, poor old chap!"

He was still shaking his head disconsolately when his cogitations were cut short by the sound of clattering hoofs and the hurried arrival of one on horseback, who galloped up to the Jura Arms and slipped like a sack from his saddle, and swayed and staggered while his blown steed looked inquiringly round at him, till Justin Carthew slipped an arm about him and would have led him indoors.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Herries?" Carthew demanded, amazed. "You should be at home in bed, and—"

"The beacon?" gasped the new-comer, a haggard, sick-looking old man with a long white beard, almost spent, but none the less resolute not to enter the inn.

"It seems that Lady Josceline Justice has just arrived at the castle," Carthew informed him concisely, after a moment of hesitation.

"Lady—Josceline—Justice!" the other repeated dazedly, but with evident disbelief. "Did you say—Lady Josceline Justice! You're surely joking, Mr. Carthew—although it would be no joke for you if her ladyship had come back to life."

"I'm not joking," Carthew assured him.

"But—how can it be!" the other demanded. "I can't conceive—Have you seen her yourself?"

"Yes, I've seen her," declared Carthew. He could not have answered otherwise without betraying Sallie.

"But come away in. You must get between the blankets again at once," he insisted firmly. "A five-mile gallop on a night like this is quite enough to finish you. And there will be time enough in the morning—to pay her ladyship a call."

"I've been factor of Loquhariot these five and thirty years—and it would ill become me to be abed at such a moment. I'm going up now," the sick man asserted stubbornly. "I'm responsible for all that goes on here, as you know very well, Mr. Carthew—and I've had no news at all of this. I can't understand—And yet—it must indeed be her ladyship, as you say, since Janet M'Kissock—"

He caught at his horse's bridle again and tried to clamber into the saddle.

A group of whispering villagers had gathered about the inn door, and they joined Carthew in his well-meant remonstrances. But the anxious steward of the estate was not to be gainsaid by anyone.

"If the Lady Josceline Justice has come back to her own at last," he declared, shivering, "it is my undoubted duty to be on hand. And what matters else? Get the pipes out, lads, and gather together. Shall it be said of us that her ladyship lacked a true Highland welcome home?"

Carthew, seeing him so set in his purpose and not knowing how to prevent him except, perhaps, at Sallie's expense, saw nothing for it but to let events shape themselves. He brought the old man a little brandy, which served to steady him somewhat, so that he sat in his saddle none so limp at the head of the muster formed at his bidding. And Carthew walked up the hill by his side, partly to help him, and partly in hope of another glimpse of the girl who had surely bewitched himself.

At his heels tramped three stalwart pipers, and the still, star-lit night rang again to the shrill strains of the march they struck up; while close behind, keeping step to its lilt, came a couple of hundred or so of the villagers and their visitors from mountain and glen and shore. Blazing pine-knots served for torches and lighted the way well, until they at length reached the landward front of the castle, where the sick man marshalled them in a wide, crimson half-moon about the drawbridge, while Carthew held his horse for him at one side.

The postern-door opened noiselessly and Janet M'Kissock looked out from within. Herries crossed the drawbridge toward her, and, "Eh, Janet, woman!" said he, "what's all this I hear so late? They tell me that the Lady Josceline Justice has come to Loquhariot, and—"

"It was because you were so ill that I didn't send word at once, Mr. Herries," the housekeeper put in defensively as he paused. "The beacon was fired without her ladyship's knowledge by one of her friends. I don't—"

"It is her ladyship, then?" the factor demanded, searching her face with his keen, anxious, fevered eyes. "Whence came she so suddenly, Janet?"

"It is indeed her ladyship," the old woman answered solemnly. "But—more than that I do not know. I have had all to see to since the sun set, and—"

The other checked her plaint with an uplifted hand.

"I'll hear about everything else by and by. And meantime—I've brought some of her own folk up to offer her welcome—since it is she," he said, all his doubts evidently dispelled by Janet M'Kissock's emphatic assurance. "Will she come out to us for a few minutes, think ye?"

"That will she, I'm sure," answered Mrs. M'Kissock. "Her ladyship has a heart of gold, as it were, and a very kindly way with her. I'll send in word that her folk are here—she'll have finished dinner by now."

She turned and left him, closing the postern behind her so that only the red torch-light illumined the high portcullis and level drawbridge until, presently, the massive main-doors of the castle swung slowly back on their well-oiled hinges and in the heart of the glow from within appeared Sallie, with that young-old man whom Justin Carthew so disliked at her side in very correct evening clothes. But he stayed a little behind as she stepped forward and stopped under the portcullis, the flare of the torches full on her face, a very dazzling vision indeed. For she also was dressed for the evening, and in a creation from Paris.

Carthew's heart was thumping as he drew farther aside into the shadows. She had not noticed him in his plaid, holding the old man's horse.