The Dark Mile. D. K. Broster

said Ian, looking sympathetically at this poor father’s haggard face. “Meanwhile, will you not come downstairs, and let me offer you a glass of wine or eau-de-vie after your accident?”

      The gentleman thanked him and they went down. Old Invernacree, evidently just come into the house, was standing in the hall.

      “I was out, and have but this moment heard of your mishap, sir,” he said courteously. “I hope your daughter is not severely hurt. Will you please to come in here?” And he opened the door of his study.

      The stranger sank into a chair and rested his brow on his hands, and there was silence for a moment or two. A servant brought in brandy; Ian took it from him and advanced to the guest’s elbow.

      “May I pour you out a glass of eau-de-vie, Mr.——sir?” he corrected himself.

      “Thank you, I should be glad of it.” The traveller raised his head. “My name is Campbell—Campbell of Cairns.”

      Ian’s hand shook suddenly, and he poured a little stream of brandy on to the salver which held the glass. He heard his father draw his breath sharply, and saw that, standing there, he had put a hand to the table as if to steady himself. Mr. Campbell of Cairns, between past shock and present anxiety, noticed nothing; with a murmured word of thanks he drained the glass and a little colour came into his thin, hard face.

      “I thank you, sir,” he said, looking up at Ian. “When my brain is a trifle clearer . . . I have a great deal, I know, to thank you for. I think I heard the name of Stewart used. Am I right?”

      “Yes, our name is Stewart, Mr. Campbell,” said the old laird, standing very still and regarding him fixedly. “Stewart of Invernacree. This is my remaining son, Ian. My firstborn fell on Drummossie Moor.”

      “Like many another brave man,” murmured Mr. Campbell. At that moment the door opened, and he turned his head and got up. It was Grizel.

      “Madam, what news of my daughter?”

      “I think, sir,” said Miss Stewart, “that you may be easy. She has come to herself. We may expect the doctor—if he is at home—before nightfall.”

      “She has come to herself? Then I will go to her,” exclaimed Mr. Campbell. “That is, unless you think it inadvisable?”

      “No,” said Grizel, “I think you might well see her for a few moments, sir, for she has asked for you and is anxious for your safety.” And on that, with a murmured apology to his host, the anxious father followed her out.

      “Ian,” said old Invernacree when the door was shut, “do you realise who that man is?”

      “Yes,” answered his son very gravely. “But even Alan in his grave would not have us refuse him and his daughter shelter.”

      “No,” acquiesced the old man. He seemed to have aged by ten years in the last few minutes. “No, that is the worst of it! . . . O God, give me charity!”

      Once more the door opened; this time it was Jacqueline who came in, looking even prettier than usual in her excitement. “Father, Ian, the young lady has recovered her senses! Did you pull her out of the coach, Ian—and was it running away all the while—and who are they?”

      It was her father who answered the last query.

      “That is the man, Jacqueline,” he said, with a deep and steady sternness, “who commanded the Campbell militia at the battle of Culloden; and they, as you know, were the troops who shot down your brother Alan.”

      § 2

      Supper that night at Invernacree was an uncomfortable meal, at least for all the Stewarts at the board, though it was not in old Invernacree to show a grudging hospitality. As for Mr. Campbell of Cairns, his anxiety for his daughter and his own recent escape from serious accident, joined to the probability that he was not himself aware that Alexander Stewart regarded him as having the blood of his eldest son upon his hands, protected him in some measure from the full realisation of the prevalent malaise, though naturally he could not suppose that one of his name would ever be very welcome under the roof of a Stewart, more especially of one who had lost a son at Culloden. Whatever he perceived, however, or did not perceive, he excused himself soon after the meal and retired to bed, while the old laird withdrew with a clouded face into his own study, whither no one liked to follow him. Grizel returned to the bedside of her patient, and Ian and Jacqueline were left alone together, she to enquire of every particular of the accident, and he to deplore the strange and unfortunate chance which had thrown Campbell of Cairns and his daughter, of all people, upon their kindness.

      “Not that one could hold her responsible for anything, Ian,” observed Jacqueline almost pleadingly. “She can have been little more than a child when Alan was killed.”

      “No, naturally not,” agreed her brother. “Yet I wish, chiefly for our father’s sake, that it had been anyone—any Campbell even—but Campbell of Cairns!”

      Jacqueline sighed. She herself had been but ten years old when the Cause went down in the sleet and the wind. She remembered her brother Alan well, of course, but nine years seems a long space of time to a girl not yet twenty. Ian had never replaced Alan in her father’s heart—she knew that—but he had in hers.

      “She is very beautiful, this Miss Campbell,” she remarked after a moment.

      “Is she?” asked Ian indifferently. “I had not time to observe it.”

      He was not speaking the truth. If there had not indeed been time in the overturned coach to see whether the huddled girl he had lifted out were plain or comely, he had not helped to carry Miss Campbell all the way to Invernacree without observing the face upon which he had looked during that slow transit. And even viewed upside down, even with a handkerchief bound about the forehead and half obscuring the beautiful pencilling of the eyebrows, that face was one which a man would not willingly take his eyes from. Young Invernacree, therefore, was quite aware that the lady of the coach was lovely; and quite unmoved by the fact. She was a Campbell.

      The invalid, reported Grizel next morning at breakfast, had passed a very fair night; the headache from which she had suffered yesterday was gone, nor was the slight cut on her forehead troubling her. But the doctor had decreed last night that she was not to leave her bed for a couple of days, nor to take her departure from Invernacree for a week or more.

      “We shall be very pleased, shall we not, Grizel, to keep the young lady for as long as it suits her to remain?” said the laird at breakfast, with no trace of hostility in his tone. Nor was the speech due to the presence of the young lady’s parent, since Mr. Campbell was breakfasting in his own room.

      “But what about her father, sir?” queried Ian.

      Invernacree’s fine old face grew dark. “God forbid that I should turn even the slayer of my son from my door when he is in need of succour. Since Campbell of Cairns has broken bread beneath my roof, I cannot hasten his departure, but I can hope that he will soon take it of his own motion, for last night I seemed to see Alan’s wraith behind him at every turn.”

      “If Mr. Campbell had shot poor Alan with his own hand our father could not feel it more acutely,” observed Grizel with a troubled face a little later, when she found herself alone with her half-brother and sister. “I cannot quite so regard the matter; it was the fortune of war that he and not another should have commanded the Campbell militia and thus——”

      “Was it the fortune of war which made the Campbells prostitute themselves to the service of the Hanoverian?” demanded Ian, suddenly fierce. “No, it was another kind of fortune, that which they have always known where to find—the profitable, the winning side in every quarrel!”

      “My sorrow!” sighed Grizel. “I know that as well as you, Ian. Yet Cairns seems a decent man enough, and it’s likely has regrets now.”

      “Grizel is over douce,” pronounced Jacqueline, twining her arm in her brother’s.