She smiled over her shoulder. “I did not know that till to-day,” she answered. “Many of the Fraser’s women have hair like this.”
She took up the long curls in her white hand, and held them in the firelight where they glittered ruddy gold. Her green eyes surveyed him.
They looked at each other so a full minute—then he spoke.
“Why did you strike me when you rode past?”
“My whip slipped—I meant it for the horse,” she said, “not for you, Macdonald of Glencoe—why should I?”
The thick peat smoke, that circled round the hut before it found the rude aperture that served as a chimney, made her cough and shudder.
“By the entrance to Glenorchy,” he answered, gazing hard at her.
“Ah,” she said, “Jock Campbell’s lands—his castle lies there, you said?”
She was leaning against the wall; her eyes indifferently on the smoke and flame; then suddenly she lifted them and Macdonald started; they were such a vivid color, green as those of a wildcat.
“You are bold to come so near Glenorchy when you have burnt Jock of Breadalbane’s house,” she smiled.
“He is in the Lowlands,” Macdonald answered. “And I have said—no Campbell would follow where I go—to Glencoe—though Campbell of Breadalbane is serpent-cunning and very full of lies.”
“You hate him very deeply?” she questioned.
“He is the loathed devil of all the Campbells,” he cried, “surely you know that?”
“What are his qualities?” she asked. “Why do you hate him so?”
“Ask every soul in the Highlands or the Lowlands,” he answered fiercely, “and if ye find one to say a good word for Jock Campbell—then will I tell ye of his qualities.”
He came across the hut and stood towering over her.
“I do mistrust you,” he said. “I think you are over quiet.”
She drew herself a little closer against the wall, the green eyes glittered up at him.
“I think you are a Campbell,” said Macdonald, breathing hard.
“By Christ, I am not,” she answered resolutely. “Nor any friend of theirs.”
There was a little pause, the heavy sweep of the rain without came distinctly, mournfully, and a low wind howled through the rough window.
Macdonald gazed into her eyes: she did not wince, but suddenly smiled; the color came into her cheeks.
“Ye have a wonderful face, Helen Fraser,” he said. “Are you a princess of the clan?”