While the Big House was going on its way from cellar to attic, as if it had been within the sound of Bow Bells instead of in a remote Highland glen, Marjory for the first time in her life felt time heavy on her hands; a thing not to be tolerated for an instant by a young person of her views and prospects. She told herself that if this was the result of her holiday, the sooner she set to work and forgot that pleasant, idle time the better. For it had been pleasant, and Paul Macleod had been kind. But what of that? His ways were not her ways--his thoughts were not her thoughts; and then suddenly would come the memory of that short instant on Isle Shuna when they had stood hand in hand watching the Green Ray. Or was that only another result of idleness?--that she should be growing fanciful. Paul himself had denied seeing it, and after all, despite his kindness, he was the last person to have sympathy with her ideals; yet such sympathy was the only thing which could make her care for him or his society. She told herself all this, over and over again, until she believed it; for Marjory had not yet learnt to differentiate her head from her heart. Many women never learn the art, and though some, no doubt, find the difficulty lies in discovering their heads, a far greater number stop short at a calm affection in the catalogue of their emotions.

Still, for some reason or another, as yet inexplicable to the girl herself, the melodious carol of a blackbird singing his heart out in a cherry tree sent a pain to her own. It seemed to fill the world with unrest, even though the house lay still as the grave; for Mrs. Cameron and the lassies were away at the milking. She covered her ears to shut out the sound and bent closer to her book, until suddenly she found herself blindfolded by a pair of strong, slender, supple hands--hands that could not be mistaken for an instant.

"Tom!" she cried. "Oh, Tom! is it you?"

"Tom it is," said a voice with a pleasant intonation scarcely foreign, and yet assuredly not wholly English. "E' bene! Mademoiselle Grands-serieux! So this is the way you hold high holiday?"

He pointed to the open book, then, as she clung delighted to his arm, put on an air of simulated disgust, perhaps to conceal the keen joy which her welcome afforded him.

"Conic sections again, and I wandering round 'permiskus' calling for some of my relations to kill the fatted calf!"

"The prodigal didn't come 'permiskus.' He wired ahead and they saw him from afar."

"Then he didn't get an unexpected holiday, come express from Paris to Oban, and then walk thirty miles over the hills because he had missed the mail cart and was a fool----"

"But why a fool?"

"Why? Because the bosom of my family was absorbed in conic sections! And if that reason won't do, you really must wait until I have had some veal--for to tell truth I'm ravenous--mostly for drinks!"

He watched her as she flew off, singing as she went like any blackbird out of sheer lightness of heart, and asked himself if this were not enough? If he were bound to wait for something more? For Dr. Tom Kennedy was not a man to require much time for such thoughts, especially when he had been thinking of Marjory and his welcome all that trudge of thirty miles over bog and heather. But the answer came slowly, for he was quite as much in the dark on the vexed question of Love and Marriage as most people, and the little Blind Boy with the bow and arrows was as yet a part of his Pantheon. And yet there was temptation enough to set mere romance aside, when, after anticipating his every want, and fussing over him after the manner of a hen with a solitary chicken, Marjory drew a low stool beside his chair, and, with her elbows resting on her knees and her radiant face supported on her hands, looked over him, as it were, in sheer content.

"You don't know how nice it is to have you back," she said, suddenly stretching out one hand to him--a favourite gesture of hers when eager. He took it in both of his, bent over it, and kissed it.

"'Tis worth the parting, child, to come back--to this."

She laughed merrily. "You have such pretty manners, Tom! I expect you learnt them from grandpapa the Marquis and the haute noblesse. And then in Paris, I suppose----"

His heart contracted, but he interrupted her gaily. "I decline to be scheduled in that fashion. My manners are my own, thank Heaven! in spite of Galton on heredity. Oh! Marjory, my dear! what a relief it is to get away from it all--from the eternal hunt for something that escapes you--from the first chapter of Genesis to the Book of Revelation; and now that I come to think of it, there is something new about you--what is it?"

She shook her head hastily. "Nothing. You said that last time, I believe--people always look different. You have got greyer."

He rubbed his close-cropped head disconsolately. "Have I?--well, I can't help it. I'm getting old."

"Nonsense! And I won't have you say you are glad to get away from work--from the best work in the world! How can you tire of the only thing worth anything, and of the search for truth?"

"Because I'm forty-three--more than double your age. By the way, there was a man I know who married a girl of sixteen when he was thirty-two. And when he saw it down on the register it struck him all of a heap that when she was forty he would be eighty. Matrimony, apparently, isn't good for arithmetic--nor for the matter of that, arithmetic for matrimony!"

"What silly stories you have, Tom," laughed the girl, "and in other ways you really are so sensible."

He rose suddenly and went to the window--a small, slight man, with a keen brown face--and then, as if in excuse for the move, he picked a spray or two of white jasmine and stuck them in his buttonhole. Then he turned to her with a smile. "I should have been a deal more sensible if people hadn't taught me things when I was young. Original sin isn't in it with education. Come, Marjory! let us go and find my cousin--or there will be a row in the house."

"I like that!" retorted the girl, taking possession of his arm; "as if anyone in the place dare say a word against you. Why, she told Dr. Macrea the other day that she didn't intend to die till she could have you to attend her!" Whereat they both laughed.

But, in truth, there was much laughter and general good-will at the Lodge that evening, when Dr. Kennedy insisted on Mrs. Cameron bringing her knitting to the garden bench, while he and Marjory and Will strolled about among the flowers, or stood talking here and there as the fancy took them.

"Why do you always wear jasmine, Tom?" asked the girl, idly bending to catch a closer whiff of the buttonhole. "I suppose she used to give it to you."

"What she?"

"The one she of a man's life, of course."

"Fabulous creature! If they come at all, they come in crowds. Yes! now I think of it, I fancy you are right. I was twelve, and she a distracting young flirt of six. Her name was Pauline. I remember it, because she was the last!----"

"Oh, Tom! how can you!"

"Fact; for twenty years after that the responsibilities of searching for truth prevented my thinking of fictions."

"And after that?"

"My dear Marjory, no history is ever written up to date. Even in your beloved school-primers the last years of Her Gracious Majesty's reign are glozed over by generalities. You see it is never safe to hazard an opinion till events have proved it to be right. And then decent reserve over the immediate past saves a lot of worry. I should hate to confess that I had told a lie yesterday, though I might own up placidly to one seven years ago. Yes! seven years should be close time for confession. A man renews his vile body in that period, and can take credit for having changed his morals also."

"But it is more than seven years since you were thirty-two."

"You have a head for arithmetic, my dear, not for--the other thing; and it is possible that I am still only in the second volume of my fiction."

"You mean in love. What a delightfully funny idea!"

"Mrs. Cameron!" cried the doctor, "do you see anything comic in the spectacle of Methuselah wishing to get married; for I don't. I think it is melancholy in the extreme."

In truth he did think so, for though, when he was away, his own sentimentality seemed sufficient for them both, the first look at Marjory's face always told him that, if the received theories were true, there was something yet to come before he had any right--in a way any desire--to ask Marjory to be his wife. If they were true! There lay the problem which he found so much difficulty in solving. Like most men of his profession, he was almost over familiar with the material side of the question, and, being naturally of delicate fibre, an instinctive revolt made him exaggerate the part which romance was to play in the purification of passion. To marry when you loved each other was one thing; for one to love, and both to remain friends, was another! And between these two ideals he hesitated; for Dr. Kennedy's power lay not so much in strength as in a certain fineness of perception and delicacy of touch. And yet at times a doubt lingered--the doubt which had made him fall foul of the things he had been taught in his youth. But even through this there ran a vein of protest against the lack of colour which a more prosaic, more material, and yet less animal view of the relations which ought to exist between a man and woman would involve. For he was sentimental to a degree, and told himself that the very fact of his age made it more than ever necessary that his wife should be inspired to do her duty by something more than mere affection. That is to say, once more, if current theories were true! He came back to this point again and again, unable to settle it to his own satisfaction, and finding his chief comfort in the fact that Marjory had, hitherto, never shown the least sign of loving anyone. If that were to continue in the future, he could imagine the doubts and difficulties disappearing altogether; but for this time was required, time for her to understand her own nature. His knowledge, his experience of life, the position in which he stood towards her, all combined to make him hyper-sensitive lest in any way he should wrong her innocence and ignorance. Besides, he himself would have been bitterly dissatisfied with the position. That was the solid truth, which went further than anything else in making him stand aloof; though, no doubt, he would have denied the fact strenuously, since to men of his stamp a sentimental grief is better than no sentiment at all. Yet the grief sate on him lightly because of its very sentimentality, and because--though this again he would strenuously have denied--in his heart of hearts he felt that it was largely of his own making, and that one part of his nature was satisfied and to spare. In these days, when the happiness of the individual is both aim and end, it is curious to see how persistently one form of happiness is ignored; the happiness which indubitably comes from doing what you would not wish to do, unless you conceived it to be your duty. And yet the very people who deny the possibility of this content are the first to point out that, when all is said and done, a man can only do what he wishes to do.

So that when, on the next morning, Dr. Kennedy, who had listened to the tale of what had been going on and what was going on in the Big House with a certain foreboding, came to Marjory and urged her to accompany him on a visit there in the afternoon, he did so with the distinct intention of feeling the self-complacency of duty performed. And Marjory, in her turn, thus brought face to face with the very reasonable proposition, found it hard to make an excuse that did not rouse her own indignation by being over serious. After all, why should she not comply with Captain Macleod's urgent invitations? There was nothing to be afraid of. Nevertheless, when she appeared, clothed in white raiment with her best gloves on, she had so solemn and sedate an air that the doctor felt aghast at his own act.

"Don't look so like Iphigenia, my dear," he said; "or let us give it up."

"Certainly not. If it's the right thing to do, it has got to be done; but I do feel like a sacrificial lamb. You don't, of course; but then you are accustomed to society, a great deal of society, and I'm not. Do you know, Tom, I have scarcely ever seen more than three or four people of my own rank together in my life, and I positively don't know any girls."

"Time you did," he replied stoutly.

"But I doubt if I have any manners," she protested.

He had, at any rate; and new as the experience of the large party gathered in the big drawing-room was to her, she found immediate confidence in the perception that her companion would stand the test of any society; indeed, as she sate talking to Alice Woodward, she could not help noticing with a certain amused pride Lady George's frigid politeness give way to interested endeavours to find out who this most unusually well-bred specimen of a country doctor could be; for Paul was not there to aid his sister's ignorance.

But by and bye Mrs. Vane came in and made her way straight to Marjory with pretty little words of welcome, yet with the Anglo-Indian lady's reminiscent interest at the sight of a real live man at afternoon tea.

"Who is he?" she asked; "did he come with you?"

"He is my guardian--Dr. Kennedy."

"Kennedy! not the famous Dr. Kennedy--Tom Kennedy of Paris?" And before Marjory could get beyond the first syllable of acquiescence, Mrs. Vane had crossed the room and was standing opposite Lady George.

"I would ask you to introduce me to Dr. Kennedy," she said, "but it would be of no use, for while he has made a name for himself since I knew him, I have lost mine. So I will only ask him if he remembers the jasmine bush at the ChÂteau Saumarez?"

There was an instant's bewilderment, and then Tommy Kennedy, who had risen at her first word, took a step forward and both his hands went out gladly.

"Pauline!"

"Just so--and you are Alphonse! What a small place the world is after all! To think of finding you at Gleneira. Lady George, you were talking of theatricals this morning, and the idea fell through because no one--not even your brother--would do the jeune premier with me. He is found! Dr. Kennedy is one of the best amateur actors in Paris."

"The past tense, if you please, my dear lady," protested the doctor. "Consider my grey hairs."

"That is a remark which should not have been made, for we are contemporaries. He was my first--no! one of my first loves, Lady George. We used to give each other sweeties over the garden wall when his grandmother, the Marquise de Brisson, was not looking; but the jasmine bush, Alphonse, was at your uncle's, Prince Rosignacs's. Why! you have a bit in your buttonhole now, and I----" She pointed to the spray fastened into the laces of her tea-gown.

"Ce soir ma robe en est tout embaumÉe."

"Respires-en moi l'adorant souvenir," quoted Dr. Kennedy, looking at the lapel of his coat tenderly; and Marjory, standing a little apart, a mute spectator of the scene, felt a sudden sense of loneliness. He, too, was at home in this idle, careless life, and she was the only one who was out of it. It came upon her by surprise, for though she had known and been proud of the fact that her guardian belonged by virtue of his mother's birth to the best of French society, she had had no actual experience of him in the part of a man of the world. But he was that, and of a good world, too, she recognised frankly as she sate listening to the now animated conversation about people she had never heard of, things she had never seen, and at the same time trying to be agreeable to the girls who, dutiously, had taken her in hand. She felt that it was a duty, and a sort of indifferent resentment possessed her, even when Lady George hoped she would accompany Dr. Kennedy, who had kindly promised to dine with them next day and talk over the now possible theatricals. Yet, rather to his surprise, she accepted without even a look at his face, and made quite a polite little speech about hoping to see more of the girls; and so, with a certain independent grace, passed out into the hall, leaving him detained for a moment by some last remark. She could hear Mrs. Vane's light laugh, his voice, and then another laugh, as she stood waiting beside the deferential butler, and all involuntarily her lip curled.

"Miss Carmichael! How glad I am!" It was Paul, newly in from the moor, looking his best, as a handsome man does, in his rough shooting-clothes. He had a tuft of white heather and stag-horn moss in one hand, and with a sudden impulse he held it out gaily to her. "Tit-for-tat! you welcomed me here--though I never thanked you for so doing, did I? It is my turn now."

He had meant the offering for Violet Vane or Alice Woodward, whichever he met first, but now it seemed as if fate had sent it for Marjory and for no one else. He felt as if it were so, he looked as if it were so, and for the first time in her life Marjory felt an odd little thrill run through her veins.

"Thank you," she said soberly. "Yes! I did give it to you; so now we are quits--I mean," she corrected hastily, "that--that we are on the same footing."

There was quite a tremor in her voice, too, as, seeing Dr. Kennedy beside her, she turned to him quickly. "This is Captain Macleod, Tom;--he has been very kind to me."

In nine cases out of ten Paul Macleod on being introduced to a man belonging to a girl in Marjory's position, and, as it were, having a claim on her, would have been studiously, frigidly courteous, and no more; and so might have once and for all chilled Marjory's sudden confidence and relief in finding an old friend in her new environment; but it is difficult for an emotional man to be cold, when a sudden glow of content makes him feel absurdly happy. Consequently he went out of his way to be frank and kindly in expressing his pleasure at making the acquaintance of one of whom Miss Carmichael had so often spoken.

"In terms of reprobation, no doubt," replied Dr. Kennedy, lightly; "a guardian is a disagreeable appendage, though I try to be as little of a nuisance as I can."

"So do I," retorted Paul, with a smile; "but Miss Carmichael is so dreadfully hard to please."

As Dr. Kennedy's keen brown eyes took in the figure before him, he told himself that the girl must be hard indeed to please if she could find fault with it.

"That is the handsomest man I've seen for a long time," he said as they walked home. "What is he like inside?"

Marjory paused with her head on one side, considering. "Oh! nice in a way--the way of the world, I suppose, and I thought him nicer than ever to-day; being in his own house agrees with him. Oh, Tom! how I wish you hadn't accepted that invitation to dinner!"

Yet when she returned from the Big House, she had a little flush on her cheek, and when Dr. Kennedy challenged her to tell truth in answer to Mrs. Cameron's inquiry as to how she got on, she answered with a laugh and a nod: "Why not--it was rather interesting; quite an evolutionary process. Before I went I was protoplasmic--all in a jelly. Then at dinner we were all amoebic--digestive apparatus and nothing else. Afterwards, with the ladies, I felt like a worm, or a fish out of water. Then I wanted to have wings like a bird and fly away, but I couldn't, for the quadrumana appeared from the dining-room, and we all became apes!"

"What is the lassie talking about?" put in Mrs. Cameron, with a toss of her head. "Can you no answer a straight question wi' a straight answer? What then, I say, what then?"

"Yes! what then, Marjory?" asked Tom Kennedy, quickly; he knew the answer, and yet he wanted to hear it from her lips, because it would satisfy him that so far he had been right.

"And then--why then I suppose I became a girl--at any rate I enjoyed it. They were all so kind, and Mrs. Vane--I suppose in your world, Tom, there are heaps of women like that?"

"Not many so charming," he answered heartily. In truth it had been very pleasant meeting her again after so many years; for a man, even when he is in love, or supposes himself to be in love, with one woman, is never proof against the pleasure of being made much of by another. And Dr. Kennedy, with a quaint simplicity and wisdom, was perfectly aware of his own reputation as one of the boldest adventurers in new fields of discovery, and told himself that people made much of him for their own sake, and because he carried his restless energy with him into society as well as into his work. For energy is, as a rule, a godsend to fin-de-siÈcle men and women. So the conceit of it slipped off him like water from a duck's back, leaving him free to take his world as he found it.

But Marjory felt once more the little chill of regret for the things she had not known in his life.

"There is one thing I forget to ask you," she said quickly. "Your name is not Alphonse, is it?"

"No! But she thought Tom unromantic, and so I promised to change my name if she changed hers."

"Men don't generally do as much as that," grumbled Will. "So they are going to have theatricals, are they? That means that all the horses will be dead lame, and the laird will be wanting more."

"How on earth do you make that out?" asked Dr. Kennedy.

"Women," said Will, laconically. "Something will always be wanted in a hurry, the telegraph station is ten miles off, and women seem to think a horse can change its legs when it comes home."

There was some truth in his remark during the next ten days. Gleneira House lived in a continual bustle which gave no time for thought, save, perhaps, to Mrs. Vane, who, busy as she was, found time to congratulate herself so far on the success of her plans; for Marjory and Paul had perforce to meet constantly, and more than once something occurred to encourage her belief that there was material for mischief ready to her hand if it was needed.

But other material came to light also, or so it seemed to her cynical experience; and the clue to it came one day when she and Marjory, who had grown keen, as was only natural, over the novelty of amusement, were searching through an old portfolio of Paul's sketches for hints likely to be of use for a drop scene.

It was nothing more than the portrait of a girl with a bunch of red rowans held up to her cheek.

"That is very well done, Paul," said Mrs. Vane, holding it up for him to see, as he stood a little way off. "Who was the beautiful model?"

He came over to her hastily. "Oh! no one you know; and it isn't really worth looking at. A wretched caricature--I did not know it was there."

Something in his voice roused the amused malice which always lurked behind Mrs. Vane's treatment of Paul's foibles.

"I disagree with you; look, Miss Carmichael! Don't you think that quite the best thing we have seen of Captain Macleod's doing?"

"It is a lovely face," said the girl, "and it reminds me of someone----" Then she looked up in sudden interest. "Surely it is Paul--little Paul, I mean, Peggy Duncan's grandson; perhaps----" She stopped abruptly, remembering the big Paul's confession, and blushed, she scarcely knew why. Then, feeling vexed with herself for doing so, put down the sketch, and taking up another, made some trivial remark about its being very pretty. But Mrs. Vane had not done with the sketch. "That Highland type of face----" she began.

"There is no need to theorise over the likeness in this case," interrupted Paul, seeing through her, as he nearly always did. "It was little Paul's mother; and as I think I told you once, Miss Carmichael, the most beautiful woman I ever saw. That is why I call it a caricature, Mrs. Vane."

The anger in his voice was not to be mistaken, and Marjory, as he moved away to resume his tÊte-a-tÊte with Alice Woodward, was left with an uncomfortable feeling that she had somehow betrayed a secret, though her common, sense resented the imputation. But Mrs. Vane looked after his retreating figure with one of her fine smiles. So the memory of this particular most-beautiful-woman-in-the-world--there must have been a good many of them in Paul Macleod's life--was not pleasant to him. Wherefore? The question came quite idly, and passed from her mind without an answer. Marjory, on the other hand, took hers--as to whether she was to blame or not--seriously to heart. So much so, that when she had speech with Paul alone, which occurred naturally enough when he brought her a cup of tea, as she sate stitching away for dear life at some ridiculous theatrical property near the window, so as to get the full advantage of the waning light, she reverted to the subject at once.

"Don't," he interrupted hurriedly, almost before she had begun. "Please don't; I would so much rather you said nothing more about it."

"But I don't understand."

"Thank heaven you don't," he replied.

"Why should you say that?" she cried reproachfully. "I cannot see why I should not, if I can. I am not a fool----"

"Marjory!" interrupted Dr. Kennedy, coming forward, "little Paul Duncan has just come round from the Lodge with a message that his grannie wants to see you. We might go round that way; it is getting late as it is."

"There's no hurry," put in Paul. "I will tell them to give the boy a piece, and he can wait till Miss Carmichael has finished giving me absolution."

"That is the wrong way about, surely?" she said.

"It is the usual way between a man and a woman," replied Paul, "and will be to the end of the chapter, I'm afraid."

Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Vane, who had come out into the hall with some parting instructions to Marjory, stood looking down with the others at little Paul Duncan, who, weary of waiting, had cuddled himself round on the doorstep and fallen into the heavy sleep of childhood. "He looks very delicate," said Violet, kindly stooping over him as he lay with one hand tucked into the back of his neck in rather an unusual posture; and then suddenly she looked up at the big Paul, for the trick had taken her back to the old days when she had watched his sleep with jealous care, lest her patient should be disturbed; and how often had she not wondered why he chose so uncomfortable a position?

Impossible! and yet there was a likeness. The name, too, and his evident dislike to the mention of the boy's mother! It must mean something--what? The thought left her pale, so that Paul, turning back with her when those two had gone, noticed it, telling her that she was overworking herself.

"Of course I am overworking," she retorted, with a strange mixture of self-pity, blame, and fierce resentment. "I always do. Is it my fault if I do things quicker than other people? Is it my fault if I see things more clearly? You think I am always managing, managing; and so I am. How can I help it when, everything keeps coming into my mind, and no one thinks or cares?"

"My dear Violet! You have been overworking, indeed. You must take it easier, or we shall be having you laid up----"

"And then what would Paul Macleod do?" she went on, with a reckless laugh. "No! I won't make myself so disagreeable as all that--if I can help it, Paul; but how can one help being disagreeable at times when one is wise--wise and old? Oh, Paul, how old I am!"

"I don't see it," he answered, with an amused smile.

"You! you never see anything," she began; then suddenly returned to her own light, half-jesting manner. "No! that is not true; you see most things, but you are too young to understand me. Dreadfully young for your age, Paul, so it is lucky there are so many of us to look after you."

When she went upstairs to dress for dinner she sate down before the looking-glass and stared at herself with a sort of repugnance. Yes! she was old, hatefully old, in mind, in knowledge of the world, in experience. That thought which had flashed through her brain at the sight of little Paul lying asleep on the doorstep was not a nice thought. Yet could she help its flashing? and, if there was anything in the thought, might not the knowledge strengthen her hand in the coming fight? For a fortnight's daily experience of Alice Woodward's calm attractions had raised Mrs. Vane's opposition to her marriage with Paul to virtuous horror. No true friend, she told herself, would hesitate to throw every difficulty in the way of so disastrous a connection. At the same time she felt almost afraid to reach out after this new weapon, lest it might prove too heavy for those delicate hands of hers, accustomed for the most part to leading reins. It was one thing to goad and guide people into the right path, another to split open their heads with a sledgehammer. Though how this could be such a lethal weapon she could not see, since she knew enough of Paul Macleod to doubt if he would have had the hardihood to mention Jeanie Duncan to Marjory if there had been anything between them in the past. And yet? So she stood before possibilities, shivering on the brink, and finally telling herself there would be time enough to think of such things if less heroic measures failed. It was a mistake to touch pitch needlessly; at the same time it was as well to make sure there was pitch in the pot. So the next day saw her, on some airy pretence of getting old Peggy to knit stockings, sitting beside the old pauper and bringing to bear on her ailments and wrongs all the gay cheerfulness and sympathy which Paul declared always put him in a good humour.