ed into unknown regions
above; and behold! in their place a spacious hall was revealed--not the
bare and simple hall at Castle Dare with which Macleod was familiar, but
a grand apartment, filled with old armor, and pictures, and cabinets,
and showing glimpses of a balcony and fair gardens beyond. There were
two figures in this hall, and they spoke--in the high and curious
falsetto of the stage. Macleod paid no more heed to them than if they
had been marionettes. For one thing, he could not follow their speech
very well; but, in any case, what interest could he have in listening to
this old lawyer explaining to the stout lady that the family affairs
were grievously involved? He was still intently watching the new-comers
who straggled in, singly or in pairs, to the stalls. When a slight
motion of the white curtains showed that some one was entering one of
the boxes, the corner of the box was regarded with as earnest a gaze as
ever followed the movements of a herd of red deer in the misty chasms of
Ben-an-Sloich. What concern had he in the troubles of this over-dressed
and stout lady, who was bewailing her misfortunes and wringing her
bejewelled hands?

Suddenly his heart seemed to stand still altogether. It was a light,
glad laugh--the sound of a voice he knew--that seemed to have pierced
him as with a rifle-ball; and at the same moment from the green shimmer
of foliage in the balcony there stepped into the glare of the hall a
young girl with life, and laughter, and a merry carelessness in her face
and eyes. She threw her arms around her mother's neck and kissed her.
She bowed to the legal person. She flung her garden hat on to a couch,
and got up on a chair to get fresh seed put in for her canary. It was
all done so simply, and naturally, and gracefully that in an instant a
fire of life and reality sprang into the whole of this sham thing. The
woman was no longer a marionette, but the anguish-stricken mother of
this gay and heedless girl. And when the daughter jumped down from the
chair again--her canary on her finger--and when she came forward to pet,
and caress, and remonstrate with her mother, and when the glare of the
lights flashed on the merry eyes, and on the white teeth and laughing
lips, there was no longer any doubt possible. Macleod's face was quite
pale. He took the programme from Ogilvie's hand, and for a minute or two
stared mechanically at the name of Miss Gertrude White, printed on the
pink-tinted paper.