"Ye had na the right tae promise!" he interrupted fiercely. "An' I'll hear nae mair o' your woman's clatter. Yon babe's my master's son an' Lord Drummuir, sae I doff ma cap to him."
Which he did in the stateliest fashion, and then stalked away without another word, leaving Marrion confronted with a host of new difficulties.
She lifted the child up and carried him back to her lodgings, feeling she could do nothing to save the situation. There was little hope of getting Andrew to listen to--no, not to reason, that had long ceased to have any part in the strange catalogue of mistakes--but to listen to what she had to say.
And what had she to say? Her mind began laboriously on the past, counting her own mistakes. Why had she done this? Why had she done that? It was fear that had made her do everything--fear of the old man who sat like a spider in his web, the old man whom his own son had wished her to anger, because he had been throughout the villain of the piece! But would he have been so if she had given him the chance?
"I am sorry the little chap died; he would have been game."
The memory of those parting words stung her to the quick. What a fool she had been I Why had she not gone at once to Lord Drummuir and told him the truth? She had meant to do so, but she had been too late--too late! Well, there was no use crying over spilt milk.
So she sat going over and over the whole thing again, and yet again, until late in the evening the little lassie of the lodgings brought her a message that a man who was lying at Mistress McMurdo's was feelin' ill and would like to see her just for a little. The child being asleep she slipped over to the cottage to find Andrew Fraser once more a prey to his old enemy, tropical fever--a quaint, insistent enemy which, after lying low for years, will seize advantage of any disturbance of mind or body to reassert itself.
So there he was, as she had seen him before, trembling and shaking, with a glitter in his eyes and a flush on his face, lying huddled up under his military cloak on the sofa. Once again he slipped his feet apologetically to the ground as he saw her and essayed to stand straight--a pathetic sight, his body weak, his mind strong--so strong!