Neil was not vain, but a man likes to look his best when he goes to see the girl he loves. He did what he could to remedy the defects, and was fairly satisfied with the results when the cab set him down at his destination.
The jingling cab bells reached Agnes Fraser’s ears in the dining-room, where, with a polishing cloth, she was trying to remove the traces of the fog from her furniture.
She herself opened the door and had no doubt when she saw a tall young man alighting from the hansom that he was only some fresh seeker after "accommodation," which is the word used in her business. She had of course, seen the Laird of Garrion when he was a boy but she did not recognize him now.
He paid the man and came smilingly to the door.
"Mrs. Fraser? You don’t know me, I can see, though you must have seen me sometimes at Achree--Drummond of Garrion."
"Oh, sir, I beg your pardon. I micht hae kent; but there--of course ye are cheenged. Will you come inside, sir? It’s a prood woman I am to bid ye to my hoose."
He entered the house, and, with his hat in his hand, put the one straight question on his lips.
A great light broke over Agnes Fraser’s mind. She nodded silently, pointing to the dining-room, and followed him in.
"This is God-sent, Mr. Drummond. I wad hae written to the Glen the day if ye hadna come."
"But what is wrong? I hope Miss Mackinnon is not ill?" he said with eager apprehension.
"Not ill in her body, though she has got very thin. But will you not sit down, and I will tell you? She is not in the hoose at this very meenit, though I think I can tell ye whaur to find her."
Neil took the chair and waited for all that he might hear.
"She has been in this hoose, sir--let me see--ten weeks a’thegither, coontin’ frae the time she cam’ first. Three weeks of that time she was at that queer hoose in Hans Crescent."
Agnes then grasped the fact that nobody in Glenogle or Balquhidder knew aught of Isla’s movements since she had come to London, and she proceeded in her own terse and graphic way to describe them.
"Weel, ye see, she cam’ here--for why, I dinna ken. Them that’s left in the Glen are the wans that should ken that bit of it. But she cam’, not intendin’ at a’ to go to foreign places to Lady Mackinnon, but jist to live by hersel’ and get her ain livin’."