was something she had never felt before, though almost any other
woman would have diagnosed at once. It was, in fact, nothing less than
her first twinge of jealousy.

She chose to forget all the wise precepts by which she had regulated
Stair's conduct toward her. She forgot how she had carefully explained
to him that all the duties were to be on his side, and all the benefits
on hers.

"He did not even shake hands," she thought, looking at the wrist which
the Prince and other great gentlemen has so often fervently kissed, "and
yet he can stop to pat that dog's head!"

Nobody had told Patsy that marriage is a dish that cannot be eaten by
one while the other looks on. She had chosen her way. She had carried it
through, and now in spite of the luminous explanations which she had
given Stair as to their relative positions and duties, he had chosen to
misunderstand, and had marched off straight as a ramrod.

And she caught herself murmuring over and over to herself, "Stiff-necked
and rebellious--stiff-necked and rebellious!"

It was to Stair she referred, but the accompanying stamp of the little
foot might possibly have raised doubts as to the correctness of her
application, had any been there to see.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A PICTISH HONEYMOON

Stair Garland slept little that night. He wandered in the cool purple
darkness here and there about the island, listening to the curious
noises of the birds, complaining vaguely, or calling one to the other
from the rocky ledges. He was conscious of the perpetual drumming of the
sea in his ears, as the tide ran, jostled in the narrow reaches, and
hammered without ceasing on the outer cliffs of the little island.

The pair of cows were company to him. He wondered whence they came and
who had placed them there. They did not waste their time, but munched
steadily at the lush grasses in the interior meadow of the isle--the
hollow palm of its hand, as it were. The problem took his mind for a
while off his own miseries.

Some one had been there. Some one had been accustomed to tend and milk
them. It could not be his sister Jean, for she could not have been long
enough spared from the farm at Glenanmays. Who, then, had provided all
that they found waiting for them? The poultry he had penned in darkness,
so that their early crowing might not awaken Patsy. She must know. She
had prepared all this. She had prepared everything. Even his own
delivery from prison, even the great must