They had passed the Hotel, and were walking through the Trossachs, when they overtook a gentleman’s servant laden with a soda-water syphon and a great basket of fruit which he was evidently carrying down to Loch Katrine.
Glancing at the man, Ralph gave an exclamation of astonishment.
“Why, Linklater! is it you? I was speaking to Mr. Macneillie about you only just now.”
The man’s face lighted up as he returned Ralph’s cordial greeting, and he looked searchingly at Macneillie, having very often heard that the actor was one of Lady Fenchurch’s oldest friends.
“I little thought to see you here, sir,” he said, turning to Ralph. “We came this morning from Stronachlachar, for there was a good wind for sailing, and Master Charlie was wanting to set foot on Ellen’s Isle. He’s there now, with her ladyship, and I came on to the Hotel to get these things for lunch.”
“They have left Mearn Castle then?” said Ralph in surprise.
“Well, sir,” said Linklater, with a little hesitation in his manner, “if you’ve not already heard, maybe I had better tell you the whole truth, for all the world must know it as soon as her ladyship sues for a divorce.”
Macneillie made an inarticulate exclamation. Like one in a dream he listened to the man’s brief account. It appeared that Sir Roderick had seduced the young wife of one of the game-keepers on the Castle estate--that the enraged husband discovering him had given him such a castigation that it had been impossible to hush up the affair, and that Lady Fenchurch, on learning the truth, had left Mearn Castle.
There was a pause when the man had ended. Ralph waited for his companion to ask some question, to make some comment, but Macneillie walked on in absolute silence, evidently too deeply engrossed in his own reflections to be even conscious that he was not alone.
This, then, was the meaning of his inward perception of Christine’s grievous need! In this fortnight, during which his whole soul had been absorbed in prayer for her, she had lived through the most awful crisis of her life, and now she was near to him in her forlorn, unprotected, worse than widowed condition. He must at any rate, inquire if she would see him, ask if he could in any way help her, and here in this quiet spot there was fortunately no danger that idle talkers would comment on their meeting. He pencilled a few words in German on one of his cards and turned to Linklater.