It was dark when she wakened and dressed hurriedly.  Running down to the kitchen to tell Jean the pleasant effects of her plaster she found it was half-past six.

“Andrew Lashcairn’s doon,” said Jean, looking scared.

“Who helped him?” asked Marcella, lifting the lid of the teapot that stood on the hearth.  She poured into it some water from the singing kettle, and after a minute poured a cup of weak tea, which she drank thirstily.

“He wasna helpit—­not with han’s.  The mistress was frettin’, wonderin’ what she’d be tellin’ him aboot the furniture i’ th’ book-room.  An’ he juist cam’ in, luikit roond, and laught.  I lighted a fire i’ there for him, for it’s cauld.  But he went off doon the passage, gruppin’ his stick.”

“Is he lying down?  Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t slept so long!  It would have been better for him if I’d been there with him.”

“No, he isna to his bed.  He’s gone through the green baize door.  An’ it’s a’ that dusty!  I havena bin in tae clean sin’ the day he tuik tae his bed.  Always the mistress has said I maun leav’ it.  An’ noo the master’s gaun in.”

“Never mind, Jean, he won’t notice,” said Marcella, feeling a little incredulous that Jean should be caring about dust now.  It seemed as much out of place as her worrying about the mark the plaster had made on her face.  “I’m going to get him out.  He’ll be frozen in there.”

“He cam’ in tae me and said that the folks was tae have meat and drink!  Meat and drink!  An’ whaur’s it tae come frae?” asked Jean in despair.

Marcella flushed a little then and said quickly: 

“I expect he was back in the past, Jean.  But perhaps he’s more for the folks than meat and drink, really.”

But as she ran along the gusty passage to the green baize door all her pride rose savagely to think that guests should come, bidden autocratically to the house, and go away unfed.  And that the servant, the one poor staunch, unpaid servant, should grieve about it.  But she soon lost that thought as she knocked at the green baize door and could get no answer.

“Father!  Yell be cold in there.  Do come out!”

She waited, and at last he answered her steadily and clearly.

“I’m coming at the right time, Marcella.  I have my watch.”

“But you’ll be so cold,” she protested.

“I’ll be colder yet, soon,” he said calmly, and she was forced to go away.  She guessed that Andrew’s sense of dramatic fitness made him wish to make his last entry on the stage alone.  So she went back to her room and stood looking out over Lashnagar, where the autumn mists stalked and mowed at each other and fluttered and jostled and fought.