He nodded.

"That is very funny," she said. "There must be two of you. I happen to have stayed in those parts and met the other."

There seemed to be no expression at all in his eyes as they met hers; nor did hers reveal anything. Then he looked round them quietly.

There were several pa.s.sengers not far away.

"It would be rather pleasant in the bows," he suggested. "Shall we move along there for a little?"

He made the proposal very courteously, and yet it sounded almost as much a command as a suggestion, and he began to move even as he spoke.

She started too, and exchanging a casual sentence as they went, they made their way forward till they stood together in the very prow with the bow wave beneath their feet, and the air beating cold upon their faces,--a striking solitary couple.

"I'm wondering if yon's a married meenister!" said one of their fellow-pa.s.sengers--a facetious gentleman.

"It's no' his wife, anyhow!" grinned his friend.

A little later the wit wondered again.

"I'm wondering how long thae two are gaun tae stand there!" he said this time.

The cliffs fell and a green sound opened. The mail boat turned into the sound, opening inland prospects all the while. A snug bay followed the sound, with a little grey-gabled town clinging to the very wash of the tide, and a host of little vessels in the midst. Into the bay pounded the mail boat and up towards the town, and only then did the gallant minister and his fair acquaintance stroll back from the bows.

The wag and his friend looked at them curiously, but they had to admit that such a prolonged flirtation had seldom left fewer visible traces.

They might have been brother and sister, they both looked so indifferent.

The gangway shot aboard, and with a brief hand-shake the pair parted.

A few minutes later Miss Holland was being greeted by an elderly gentleman in a heavy ulster, whilst the minister was following a porter towards a small waggonette.

VI.

THE VANISHING GOVERNESS.

The house of Breck was a mansion of tolerable antiquity as mansions went in the islands, and several curious stories had already had time to encrust it, like lichen on an aged wall. But none of them were stranger than the quite up-to-date and literally true story of the vanishing governess.

Richard Craigie, Esq., of Breck, the popular, and more or less respected, laird of the mansion and estate, was a stout grey-bearded gentleman, with a twinkling blue eye, and one of the easiest-going dispositions probably in Europe. His wife, the respected, and more or less popular, mistress of the mansion, was lean and short, and very energetic. Their sons were employed at present like everybody else's sons, and do not concern this narrative. But their two daughters, aged fifteen and fourteen, were at home, and do concern it materially.

It was only towards the end of July that Mrs Craigie thought of having a governess for the two girls during the summer holidays. With a letter in her hand, she bustled into Mr Craigie's smoking-room, and announced that her friend Mrs Armitage, in Kensington, knew a lady who knew a charming and well-educated girl--

"And who does she know?" interrupted her husband.

"n.o.body," said Mrs Craigie. "She is the girl."

"Oh!" said the laird. "Now I thought that she would surely know another girl who knows a woman, who knows a man----"

"Richard!" said his wife. "Kindly listen to me!"

It had been her fate to marry a confirmed domestic humourist, but she bore her burden stoically. She told him now simply and firmly that the girl in question required a holiday, and that she proposed to give her one, and in return extract some teaching and supervision for their daughters.

"Have it your own way, my dear. Have it your own way," said he. "It was economy yesterday. It's a governess to-day. Have you forced the safe?"

"Which safe?" demanded the unsuspecting lady.

"At the bank. I've no more money of my own, I can tell you. However, send for your governess--get a couple of them as you're at it!"

The humourist was clearly so pleased with his jest that no further debate was to be apprehended, and his wife went out to write the letter. Mr Craigie lit his sixteenth pipe since breakfast and chewed the cud of his wit very happily.

A fortnight later he returned one evening in the car, bringing Miss Eileen Holland, with her trunk and her brown suit-case.

"My hat, Selina!" said he to his wife, as soon as the girls had led Miss Holland out of hearing, "that's the kind of governess for me! You don't mind my telling her to call me d.i.c.k, do you? It slipped out when she was squeezing my hand."

"I don't mind you're being undignified," replied Mrs Craigie in a chilly voice, "but I do wish you wouldn't be vulgar."

As Mr Craigie's chief joys in life were entertaining his daughters and getting a rise out of his wife, and as he also had a very genuine admiration for a pretty face, he was in the seventh heaven of happiness, and remained there for the next three days. Pipe in mouth, he invaded the schoolroom constantly and unseasonably, and reduced his daughters to a state of incoherent giggling by retailing to Miss Holland various ingenious schemes for their corporal punishment, airing humorous fragments of a language he called French, and questioning their instructor on suppositious romantic episodes in her career. He thought Miss Holland hardly laughed as much as she ought; still, she was a fine girl.

At table he kept his wife continually scandalised by his jocularities; such as hoa.r.s.ely whispering, "I've lost my half of the sixpence, Miss Holland," or repeating, with a thoughtful air, "Under the apple-tree when the moon rises--I must try and not forget the hour!" Miss Holland was even less responsive to these sallies, but he enjoyed them enormously himself, and still maintained she was a fine girl.

Mrs Craigie's opinion of her new acquisition was only freely expressed afterwards, and then she declared that clever though Miss Holland undoubtedly was, and superior though she seemed, she had always suspected that something was a little wrong somewhere. She and Mr Craigie had used considerable influence and persuasion to obtain a pa.s.sport for her, and why should they have been called upon to do this (by a lady whom Mrs Armitage admitted she had only met twice), simply to give a change of air to a healthy-looking girl? There was something behind _that_. Besides, Miss Holland was just a trifle too good-looking. That type always had a history.

"My wife was plain Mrs Craigie before the thing happened," observed her husband with a twinkle, "but, dash it, she's been Mrs Solomon ever since!"

It was on the fourth morning of Miss Holland's visit that the telegram came for her. Mr Craigie himself brought it into the schoolroom and delivered it with much facetious mystery. He noticed that it seemed to contain a message of some importance, and that she failed to laugh at all when he offered waggishly to put "him" up for the night. But she simply put it in her pocket and volunteered no explanation. He went away feeling that he had wasted a happy quip.

After lunch Mrs Craigie and the girls were going out in the car, and Miss Holland was to have accompanied them. It was then that she made her only reference to the telegram. She had got a wire, she said, and had a long letter to write, and so begged to be excused. Accordingly the car went off without her.

Not five minutes later Mr Craigie was smoking a pipe and trying to summon up energy to go for a stroll, when Miss Holland entered the smoking-room. He noticed that she had never looked so smiling and charming.

"Oh, Mr Craigie," she said, "I want you to help me. I'm preparing a little surprise!"

"For the girls?"

"For all of you!"

The laird loved a practical jest, and scented happiness at once.

"I'm your man!" said he. "What can I do for you?"

"I'll come down again in half an hour," said she. "And then I want you to help me to carry something."

She gave him a swift bewitching smile that left him entirely helpless, and hurried from the room.

Mr Craigie looked at the clock and decided that he would get his stroll into the half-hour, so he took his stick and sauntered down the drive.

On one side of this drive was a line of huddled wind-bent trees, and at the end was a gate opening on the highroad, with the sea close at hand.

Just as he got to the gate a stranger appeared upon the road, walking very slowly, and up to that moment concealed by the trees. He was a clergyman, tall, clean-shaved, and with what the laird afterwards described as a "hawky kind of look."

There was no haughtiness whatever about the laird of Breck. He accosted every one he met, and always in the friendliest way.

"A fine day!" said he heartily. "Grand weather for the crops, if we could just get a wee bit more of rain soon."