Days are long to a man and a woman when one of them passionately desires the other, for every instant counts, every moment spells success or failure. And Fantine Le Grand, with her almost lifelong experience of intrigue, was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. So when, two days later, Marmaduke ran over the quadrangle to beg a favour of Marrion Paul, most of his scruples had disappeared, and, for the time, at any rate, he was an admiring lover, eager to do anything and everything for the woman of the moment.

"You can, quite well, if you like, Marrion," he pleaded. "It would only be for a day or two, till Josephine could put her foot to the ground again. And Mdlle. Le Grand--she has been very much maligned, Marmie--is perfectly charming. Now do. It isn't often I ask you to do anything for me, is it?"

Marrion Paul had opened her eyes at the proposition, which was briefly that, during the temporary disablement of Mdlle. Le Grand's French maid, she should go over and take her place. She had been on the point of refusal when that "for me" startled her. Was it possible that he could count that woman's convenience his own? She hesitated, but only for a second.

"I will do what I can for you, Captain Duke," she said.

In an instant all the old charm, all the old camaraderie came to his voice--

"I knew you would, Marmie. I told her so. You're a real friend, you do such a lot of things for me." Then he in his turn hesitated, looked confused, and finally spoke: "I had such odd dreams that night--the night we danced, you know. I dreamt that you helped me up the stairs and--and put me to bed like a baby." He paused. "Did you, really, Marmie?"

The colour rushed to her face.

"Aye, Captain Duke, I did. Andrew was ill and you were drunk."

Her straightforward candour abashed him beyond words.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, so humbly that her heart melted within her. Then he added, with a sudden influx of joyousness, "But I'm really going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to cut and run before long and let my father stew in his own juice."

She caught him up instantly.

"Your father's your father, Mr. Duke, and you're the heir to the old barony. You mustn't forget that. It's laid on you, and it's not to be put aside."

He paused as he was going, vexedly.

"I'm not going to put it aside, Marmie. I am only going to make the best of a bad bargain. If the old lord won't give me the money for my majority, I'm not going to stick on here getting drunk to please him."

There was distinct virtue in the last phrase, and Marmie smiled. And as she looked in the old clothes drawer for some black silk-frilled aprons which her mother had worn when she was maid to the first Lady Drummuir, she told herself that Duke was nothing but--as he had said--a big baby, and that, no matter what the dancing-woman might be like, she, Marrion, was glad to be in a position where she could see for herself what was going on.

She looked very demure, very uncompromising and upright, therefore, when that same afternoon, attired after a little coloured sketch of her mother as maid, she stood waiting for Fantine Le Grand to come up and dress for dinner. Yet, even so, the latter's instant and quite unpremeditated remark was--

"Captain Muir did not tell me you were so good-looking."

It was a revelation to Marrion's quick wits, but she was ready in reply.

"Maybe he never looked to see, ma'am," she said demurely, "having his eyes busy with prettier things."

Fantine Le Grand laughed easily and her manner changed to more familiarity at once.

"You know which side your bread is buttered, my girl. So much the better. Now I wonder how much use you will be?"

"I was six years at the dressmaking, madam," replied Marrion, "and the forewoman gave me all the touching-up work; she said I had a good hand for folds."

Fantine gave a relieved sigh.

"Then you're not quite a bumpkin, but I suppose you can't do hair?"

"I can, a little," said Marrion; "I learnt just a wee while in Perragier's shop in Edinburgh. The foreman wanted me to stop, but I don't care for the business."

All of which was absolutely true; for the hairdresser who had offered her gold for her russet hair had afterwards offered her his heart and hand. What is more he had hardly yet withdrawn his offer, and only that morning the post had brought her a long and friendly letter enclosing a sachet and a most particular account of how he had dressed the hair of all the Edinburgh celebrities in the latest fashion for the last big ball.

"I'm thinking," she went on deftly, "that the new SevignÉ style would just suit madam, if she will allow me to try. There will be time to change if it doesn't please."

Five minutes later Fantine Le Grand, in pink wrapper, was watching in the glass Marrion's fingers curling and twisting and combing and puffing. And Marrion was watching the glass also, a half inherited, half acquired perception of what was beautiful and becoming aiding her lack of practice.

"My dear girl," said Fantine delighted, when Marrion stepped back, her task completed, "you're an artist! It makes me look ten years younger. You must come with me." She paused and gave a little conscious laugh. "Anyhow, you are much better than Josephine, and so I shall tell Captain Muir."

Apparently she did, for Marrion, meeting him by chance that evening on the stairs, had to draw back from his outstretched hand.

"Hang it all," he said, almost boisterously, "I forgot you were a servant here! Do you ever forget your p's and q's, I wonder? I wish you would sometimes. Anyhow, you have made her look quite divine, and she says she means to ask you to take the place permanently."

"It is very kind of her," replied Marrion, accenting the pronoun; but Marmaduke was too absorbed to notice it. Only that afternoon he had had his final attack on his father's purse-strings, and had come down to the library where Jack Jardine and Peter were smoking, white with rage.

"It's all up!" he said. "The old man--I'll never call him father again--insulted me beyond bearing."

"I warned you, Duke," began Peter; "he isn't half recovered yet."

"And do you think I've got time to waste until my precious parent takes enough colchicum and nitre to kill a horse, all because he guzzles and swills? No. As I told him, Pringle won't wait over the week, so--so I'm making other arrangements. I shall have to ask you, Jack, to raise two hundred pounds to clinch the bargain when I meet Pringle. I don't know how the devil you do it, but you always do."

"Yes, I always do," assented Jardine a trifle wearily; "but you know, Duke, it would be wiser to raise the two thousand pounds at once and have done with it. If Pitt and Peter here were to join in a post obit, and I were to back it----"

"Thanks!" said Marmaduke curtly. "I only asked for two hundred pounds, and you can put that in the bill, can't you?"

"Yes," assented Jardine again wearily, "I can put it in the bill"

When Marmaduke had gone out of the room Peter crossed over to the fire and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"I wonder what he has got in his head," he remarked thoughtfully. "It's something to do with Fantine, alias Fanny Biggs, I'm sure."

"Fantine?" echoed Jack Jardine. "Why, of course, anyone can see that Marmaduke has been trying to get to the right side of her. I advised him to do so. And she, of course--by that scoundrel Compton's advice, I expect--has been trying to make the peer jealous in order to get rid of Marmaduke!"

Peter burst out laughing.

"Look here, Jack, you're excellent as a man of business, but you're a mole with women, you old bachelor! I could tell you a thing or two, but I won't--it's too amusing." And he strolled out of the room chuckling to himself.

Over in the keep-house, Marrion Paul felt that she, also, could tell a thing or two, even after the brief experience of being maid to Fantine Le Grand; but she did not find it amusing. On the contrary, it sent her about her new work with a frown in her eyes that were keen for every sign.

The day had been a troublous one. The old peer, up for the first time, had been so irritable that the whole household was upset. Fantine Le Grand, indeed, coming up for her usual late afternoon rest, had professed herself so outwearied by a protracted penance in milord's private room that she bade Marrion give her a double dose of her sleeping draught and tell the butler she was not coming down to dinner. She would have a dainty little supper in her boudoir at ten o'clock, and till then did not wish to be disturbed. Being thus set free, Marrion was going home when, as she passed the stairway leading to the room which Marmaduke had occupied and where Andrew Fraser still kept some of his master's spare things, she heard a noise as of someone shifting boxes. Running up to see what it was, she found Andrew busy packing up.

"Aye, we're awa' the morn's morn," he replied cheerfully to her query, "and blythe am I that the finest gentleman in the Queen's army will run no more danger o' bein' ruined by a whore-woman and an auld, auld man, as s'ould be thinkin' o' his grave an' the Last Day."

Despite a sudden catch at her heart, his hearer acquiesced calmly.

"Aye, it's well he's goin! But where is it to?"

"To Edinbro'. He's an appointment tae meet Major Pringle the morrow's morn aboot the exchange."

"An' when he's comin' back?" asked Marrion sharply.

"I heard no tell o' returnin', and I'm thinkin' not. Ye see the exchange he tell't me was settled into the auld regiment."

"Then his father----" she interrupted.

Andrew shook his head.

"It's no the auld lord. They had just a fearfu' stramash aboot it. It will be Jack Jardine again, puir fallow! He always manages it somehow. Well, he'll hae his reward at the Judgment, though I'm thinkin' he'll hae to wait till then for a reckoning."

"Maist o' us have to do that, Andry," said Marrion grimly, and then her face, looking into the hard, honest, homely face before her, softened; "an' you, abune all, abune all, my lad," she added, as she went on her way.

Andrew Fraser hesitated for a second, then followed fast.

"Thank ye for that, my dear," he said hoarsely at the foot of the stairway, "it makes it easier. An' I'll wait--aye, I'll wait till then, never fear, Marrion!"

His outstretched hand was in hers as they stood gazing into each other's eyes, his very love forgot in the flood of friendship which surged through their hearts and brains, when Miss Margaret Muir, fresh from an afternoon among the rocks with her gallant little parson, came whistling and calling to her dogs through the keep-gate. She had spent so many long years of her life without one touch of glamour and romance that, now it had come to her at last, the whole world seemed transfigured into a place full to the brim of lovers and their lasses. So in an instant the sight of those two set her becking and smiling.

"Good luck to you both!" she called. "Good luck, good luck! After all, Marrion, you see you will be asking Mr. Bryce to get you cried."

Andrew, shamefaced and confused, escaped up the stairs, but Marrion stood her ground boldly.

"There'll be scant time, Miss Marg'ret," she said, not without some scorn, "for Andrew is away with his master the morn, and Captain Duke says he will not be coming back."

Her hearer turned visibly pale. Ever since the rencontre on the rocks Margaret had been haunted by a fear lest Marmaduke should break the half-formulated compact of mutual silence. And now this news of his unexpected departure sent a thousand wild conjectures to her mind. Had he quarrelled with his father over the woman? Had he in revenge told----

"Going away!" she gasped. "I didn't know. Surely it's very sudden! Why? Can my father have found out about Mdlle. Le Grand----" Then realising her slip, she went on hurriedly, "But it is all nonsense about Duke's saying he will not come back. The boys always say that when there is a quarrel; but father forgets, and so do they, as you know quite well, Marrion. And it's only right that it should be so, for after all he is their father, isn't he?"

"Aye, Miss Marg'ret," replied Marrion gravely, "my Lord Drummuir is the present holder o' the barony, an' Captain Marmaduke is the heir to it if the Master has no son; so that settles it outright."

Margaret Muir looked at her with a sort of wistful surprise.

"You put things very plain, Marrion," she said, "but you always were a sensible girl; and, being what you are, your grandfather's granddaughter--you--you belong to Drummuir, as it were."

When she had passed on whistling and calling to her dogs, Marrion Paul stood echoing those last words in her heart. Yes, she belonged to Drummuir; but over and above that inherited loyalty there was a passion of protection for Duke himself. He must not be harmed in any way.

Was there indeed anything between him and the painted woman she was serving?

Before she wakened her for the dainty supper at ten o'clock that evening Marrion stood looking at the sleeping face, all its charm of espiÈglerie gone, the mouth cruel, the lines about the eyes hard and set.

No, whatever came, that woman should not have the spoiling of Duke's life! Not that there could be much fear since he was leaving the next day.