His hand touched her arm.  She entered the little room as one seeking refuge.  It led into a conservatory, and thence to the garden.  The apartment itself was given up entirely to weapons or instruments of sport.  Guns, fishing-rods, hunting-stocks, golf-clubs, tennis-rackets, were stored in various racks and stands.  A smell of stale cigar-smoke pervaded it.  Colonel de Vigne was wont to retire hither at night in preference to the less cosy and intimate smoking-room.

But there was no one here now, and Scott laid hat and riding-whip upon the table and drew forward a chair for his companion.

She looked at him and tried to thank him, but she was voiceless.  Her pale lips moved without sound.

Scott’s eyes were very kindly.  “Don’t be so frightened, child!” he said; and then, a sudden thought striking him, “Look here!  You go and wait in the conservatory and let me speak to him first!  Yes, that will be the best way.  Come!”

His hand touched her again.  She turned as one compelled.  But as he opened the glass door, she found her voice.

“Oh, I ought not to—­to let you face him alone.  I must be brave.  I must.”

“Yes, you must,” Scott answered.  “But I will see him alone first.  It will make it easier for everyone.”

Yet for a moment she halted still.  “You really mean it?  You wish it?”

“Yes, I wish it,” he said.  “Wait in here till I call you!”

She took him at his word.  There was no other course.  He closed the door upon her and turned back alone.

He sat down in the chair that he had placed for her and became motionless as a figure carved in bronze.  His pale face and trim, colourless beard were in shadow, his eyes were lowered.  There was scarcely an inanimate object in the room as insignificant and unimposing as he, and yet in his stillness, in his utter unobtrusiveness, there lay a strength such as the strongest knight who ever rode in armour might have envied.

There came a careless step without, a hand upon the door.  It opened, and Sir Eustace, handsome, self-assured, slightly haughty, strode into the room.

“Hullo, Stumpy!  What do you want?  I can’t stop.  I am booked to play billiards with Miss de Vigne.  A test match to demonstrate the steadiness of my nerves!”

Scott stood up.  “I have a bigger test for you than that, old chap,” he said.  “Shut the door if you don’t mind!”

Sir Eustace sent him a swift, edged glance.  “I can’t stop,” he said again.  “What is it?  Some mare’s nest about Isabel?”

“No, nothing whatever to do with Isabel.  Shut the door, man!  I must be alone with you for a few minutes.”  Scott spoke with unwonted vehemence.  The careless notes of the piano, the merry tumult of chattering voices, seemed to affect him oddly, almost to exasperate him.

Sir Eustace turned and swung the door shut; then with less than his customary arrogance he came to Scott.  “What’s the matter?” he said.  “Out with it!  Don’t break the news if you can help it!”