The Last of the Kintyres by Catherine Airlie

him. It was all as convenient as that. She married a Canadian who came to the Clyde on business and was brought up here for a fishing holiday. He was years her senior, but that didn’t matter to Caroline. He had everything else she wanted in life, and when he was killed very conveniently shortly after their marriage she came back.” Suddenly Shona stood very still with her fingers tightly gripped over the iron bed rail. “I can’t tell you what Hew’s reactions were to her return. I don’t think anyone will ever know,” she added slowly. “He was in love with her at one time. He may be still. He is not the sort of man who wears his heart on his sleeve.”
    “No,” Elizabeth agreed, her voice suddenly catching in her throat.
    “So, you see,” Shona went on determinedly, “She can only do harm where Tony is concerned. She’ll amuse herself with him—she’s not above that sort of thing, as you might guess—and then she’ll toss him to one side when it suits her, like a discarded glove. It won’t matter to Caroline what havoc she has caused in a boy’s heart in the interval. That will be Tony’s tragedy.” Suddenly she turned, her blue eyes darkened by a hatred such as Elizabeth would have believed her incapable of a few moments ago. “Don’t let her do it,” she repeated. “Don’t let her spoil your brother’s life while she’s hanging about waiting for Hew!”
    “Perhaps,” Elizabeth suggested, “Hew may marry her—sooner than we think.”
    “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Shona said. “But I hope to heaven he’ll have more sense!”
    “If he’s still in love with her—if what she did hasn’t really made any difference—”
    “How can he be in love with her?” Shona protested. “A man like Hew! Oh, I don’t know! I really don’t know,” she repeated. “Sometimes I’ve wondered if the money might make a difference,” she added stiltedly. “Hew would do anything—sacrifice anything for Ardlamond and to keep Whitefarland. His heart’s in that place. He’s lived there almost like a hermit for four years now, trying to defeat time, hoping he could make it pay sufficiently to meet the debts of the estate. And now there will be death duties on top of everything else and Whitefarland will have to go. Unless Caroline does something about it.”
    “What could she do?”
    “She could lend him the money, I suppose,” Shona suggested, tight-lipped. “Goodness knows, she has plenty of it! On the other hand, she might even buy Whitefarland herself. It would be a nice bit of bait and Caroline would be capable of anything if she thought it would catch Hew.”
    “But if she has only to wait for him to forget his former hurt?”
    “That’s just it! Caroline doesn’t want to wait. She has always been impetuous, although I should imagine she realizes by this time that Hew won’t be rushed into anything. He’ll take his time about it till he’s quite sure what he wants to do and then he’ll go boldly out and do it.” Shona said as she went towards the bedroom door.
    Hew was having a belated breakfast in Shona’s small private living-room when they went downstairs. Where she could, Shona kept her family life apart from her work, and her two sturdy sons, one sixteen and the other a year younger, were seated at the table in the window alcove with their unexpected but obviously welcome guest.
    They all rose to their feet as Shona and Elizabeth came in, and Elizabeth met Hew’s eyes across the gay yellow breakfast cloth.
    “What news of Tony?” he inquired in a brief, clipped tone which reminded her instantly of his angry impatience of the night before.
    “Mrs. Lorimer says he’s slept like a baby. Elizabeth’s voice was nervous. “It doesn’t seem as if there’s any serious after-effects of the accident, ” she added.
    He grunted and pulled out a chair for her.
    “You haven’t slept,” he observed. “At least, not for very long.”
    “Nor you.” She drew in a