Crane Castle

CRANE CASTLE Jean S MacLeod

If charm were all that mattered, there was really no contest. Warren Harper, a wealthy young Canadian, could win hands down over lain MacAllister, the impoverished laird of Crane Castle. But Cathie came to understand the dour laird's love for his ancient family home -- perhaps because she came to love the dour laird himself!

CHAPTER I The big Canadian strode up and down the hotel foyer, looking impatiently at the clock above the reception desk. A man not to be kept waiting. Tall, broad-shouldered, purposeful, his keen blue gaze took in the busy scene at a glance, although he was not particularly interested in the ebb and flow of Edinburgh social life. He was here on business. At exactly half-past ten the revolving doors started to move and a girl in a blue coat came towards him. They had never met but subconsciously they recognized each other. 'Mr Harper?' Catherine Roy enquired. He nodded. 'You're from the agency?' 'Yes.' She was younger than he had expected, but she looked efficient. He stooped to take the typewriter she carried, motioning her towards the lifts. 'I'll have some coffee sent up. No need to waste time,' he suggested. Catherine smiled, walking ahead of him into the nearest lift. He had paid for her services for one week and he evidently meant to make the most of them. Mrs Lacey, at the agency, had said he was a millionaire, but Alice often exaggerated. Certainly he did look as if he were used to command, and maybe that was why he had made so much money, she reflected. Because he knew what he wanted and he never wasted time.

'I've taped the letters I want you to do this morning,' he informed her, acknowledging the attendant's respectful salute as they shot up to the second floor. ' I have an appointment at eleven o'clock.' He lifted an immaculate cuff to consult his watch. ' It just gives me enough time to settle you in.' 'I could have come earlier,' Catherine suggested, ' but you did say half-past ten.' She couldn't imagine him being a reluctant riser. At the agency they had thought ten-thirty rather late. ' You never know with these Canadians,' Alice had said. ' He'll probably have done a day's work by the time you get there.' 'I had some calls to make and a date with a lawyer.' He smiled reminiscently, the blue eyes crinkling with wry amusement. ' You don't believe in hustle here in this town,' he observed. ' I had the dickens of a job to get to see this lawyer fellow by half-nine o'clock. Didn't usually come in till ten, his clerk informed me.' 'We live at a slower tempo, I suppose,' Catherine reflected as they stepped from the lift, ' but I hope we're just as efficient. I can come earlier tomorrow,' she pointed out. 'Sure, that'll be fine.' He was fumbling for his key. ' I generally bring my own stenographer across with me when I come to Europe, but she was taken ill. I guess she wasn't too keen on being away so long, either. She's married and has a family. Six months is a long time to go without seeing them.' He opened a door at the end of the corridor, stepping aside so that she could go in ahead of him. The suite consisted of a small, square hall from which three doors opened on to bedroom, bathroom and sittingroom.

'In here.' He passed her to open the nearest door. ' I think you'll find everything in order,' he added. ' If not you can ring and ask for what you want. I've left word with Reception. Your coffee will be up in a few minutes.' He put her typewriter on the table beside the window while she took off her coat. The room was bright and sunny, looking west along Princes Street, and she could see the Gardens and the tall spires of the Scott monument and the battlements of the castle standing out grey against the turquoise sky. Edinburgh was lovely in this clear, autumn weather when the sun picked out the first turning of the leaves and flung the Auld Toon into bold relief high up on its ancient rock. She would work here happily and as quickly as she could, since speed appeared to be her employer's maxim. 'I should be back around twelve o'clock,' he announced, turning at the door. ' I've another appointment with Shaw, Russell and Moncrief this afternoon. You'll find a letter to that effect somewhere on the tape. I'd like to take it with me.' 'I'll have it ready,' Catherine promised, feeling as if she had encountered a whirlwind. After the door had closed behind him she took time to think about the Canadian. If he had really made his million he had achieved his goal in a surprisingly short space of time. Even giving him a year or two, he looked no more than thirty. Young, virile and strong, he looked as if he had lived much of his life in the open, and although his eyes were shrewd and keen he had a pleasant mouth. His brusque manner might be typical of most Canadians. She didn't know. Applying herself to her task, she switched on the tape- recorder and worked diligently until her coffee was brought in at eleven o'clock. It was black and strong, with no cream, the sort of coffee Warren Harper would have ordered for himself.

Exactly on the stroke of twelve he returned, standing in the doorway to look at her for a moment as if he were turning over something of importance in his mind. Catherine drew the final letter from her machine and stretched her fingers. 'Cramped?' he asked. 'You've certainly worked.' He picked up the sheaf of letters she had laid on the table beside her machine. ' I'll sign these and then we can get something to eat,' he said. ' Maybe the hotel restaurant would do for today. I'm not acquainted with Edinburgh yet.' It sounded as if he was inviting her to share a meal with him, and perhaps Canadian business men made a habit of taking their secretaries out to lunch. Generally she made do with a sandwich and a glass of milk at one of the coffee bars, waiting for a more substantial meal till she returned home in the evening. Her mother preferred it that way because it was more suitable for the rest of the family. More suitable for herself, too, because cooking in the middle of the day tied Isobel Roy to a routine she disliked. Catherine wasn't important, and Hamish Roy and his son lunched at the University. 'The hotel restaurant has an excellent reputation,' she agreed, rising to find her coat. ' I don't think you could really do any better.' 'I was thinking about you getting a breath of fresh air.' He began to sign the letters. ' You're cooped up most of the day.' 'I make up for it when I go home in the evening.' Her laugh was light and infectious. ' We live right out on the edge of the hills.' 'The Pentlands,' he said, airing his knowledge. 'Edinburgh's fortunate in that respect, I must admit. It's surrounded by hills. What's it like farther west?' he asked unexpectedly.

'Well, there's Glasgow, the Clyde estuary and that sort of thing.' She wasn't quite sure what he wanted to know. ' Unless you mean the Western Highlands.' 'I guess that's what I mean,' he said, lifting the letter he was about to sign. ' Do you know this place—Glen Fionn?' Catherine thought for a moment. 'It's somewhere west of the Grampians, isn't it— Lochaber of Badenoch? It's pretty remote,' she decided. 'So I'm led to understand.' His thoughts appeared to have slipped into the past. ' Did you read the letter to Shaw, Russell and Moncrief?' Her colour rose a little. 'I typed it, Mr Harper.' 'Then you read it.' He smiled disarmingly. ' Which means you know I'm trying to buy a place up there. Crane Castle, to be exact. It's the property I want.' The smile faded from his lips. ' And this fellow won't sell.' 'So I gathered,' Catherine admitted, picking up her gloves and handbag. He held out her coat for her. 'It seems that he's up to his ears in debt—death duties and that sort of thing—but he's reluctant to part with the place. He's hanging on to it like grim death, waiting for a miracle to happen, I guess, but they rarely do.' 'He may feel that he can pay off the debt if he's given enough time,' she pointed out, aware of a hardness in him which she hadn't noticed

before. ' So many of these old family estates are burdened with death duties these days. It must be a desperate sort of struggle, trying to make them pay.' He moved towards the door. 'You'd think they'd know when they were beaten, though,' he said. ' The lawyers tell me the place needs a lot done to it, but he refuses to give me a lease of more than six months at a time. I've got to be content with it that way, I guess, but I'm dissatisfied. I've never had to do a deal like this before and if I wasn't sold on the place I'd look elsewhere.' 'There aren't so very many castles for sale,' she reminded him dryly before she could check the cynicism. 'I realize that.' He didn't seem at all offended. ' That's why I've fixed on this one. It's where I want to be. The place I want for my family to settle in.' Somehow, she hadn't thought of him married and with a family. 'Surely your wife will want to see the glen before you settle down,' she suggested. He laughed, this time without reserve. 'I haven't got a wife,' he said. 'Not so far. I was talking about my mother and my sister. They're coming across here in a fortnight's time and I have to get Shaw, Russell and Moncrief moving before then. I want possession of Crane as soon as possible. It's to be a surprise for my mother. She's worked long enough. Now it's time for her to retire. I'm meeting the owner this afternoon.' They went down in the lift to the ground floor.

'You'll join me?' he asked. ' I don't like eating in strange restaurants by myself.' Catherine hesitated, glancing down at her workaday coat. 'I've brought sandwiches,' she murmured. 'Well, keep them in your purse!' he advised, taking her firmly by the arm. ' You can eat them this afternoon with your tea.' He turned out to be a charming companion, talking to her about Canada throughout the meal. 'We're in timber,' he explained. ' My mother built up the business after my father died. He was struck by a falling tree when I was ten years old—far too young to take over the reins. They were just beginning to see success ahead of them, and it was the sort of tragedy that might have embittered a lesser woman, but my mother saw it as a challenge. She went up to the timber camp and worked in the offices like a man. Her hand was on everything. She was, and still is, magnificent. It was a tough fight for a woman, but she did it so that I could come into the business when I was of age, as she had planned with my old man. That's why I sort of owed it to her to make good, and I did.' There was nothing arrogant about the simple statement of facts, and Catherine could hardly blame him for his straightforward pride in achievement. 'You must have worked very hard,' she acknowledged as the waiter came to change their plates. ' Even with so good a start.' 'I worked because I loved it.' He was looking round the crowded restaurant. ' This sort of life doesn't appeal to me much,' he observed.

' I feel caged, fenced in, if you like. I need the sun on my face and the wind against me.' 'Wide open spaces, in fact!' she smiled. ' You'll get them at Glen Fionn.' 'Yes?' He seemed undecided about that. ' Maybe if I had this place I could breed cattle, like I've always wanted to.' 'You'd have to be sure,' she said. ' About getting it, I mean.' 'I dare say he'll sell in the end.' His pleasant mouth hardened. ' If the price is high enough.' In the abrupt little pause which followed his cynical observation, Catherine looked about her. The restaurant was fairly busy, most of the tables already filling up with business executives and their clients or their fashionably- dressed wives. Many of the women already wore furs, although they still hung on to their glamorous summer hats. It was October, but Edinburgh was basking in the comparative heat of an Indian summer. The wind sweeping in from the Firth was reasonably warm. There was nothing ' snell' about it, although they couldn't hope to be spared much longer. Edinburgh, on the whole, was a cold place. 'Have you lived here all your life?' Warren Harper wanted to know. 'So far.' Catherine's grey-green eyes with the little yellow flecks in them came round to settle on his face. ' It must seem strange to you, I suppose. I've wanted to travel, of course, but I never have. There's always been —other things to do. My people haven't a lot of money and my brother's still at the University.' 'The brilliant son, eh?' he said with understanding. ' Well, maybe a girl hasn't got to be a blue-stocking to succeed.'

She laughed. 'My parents don't look at it that way,' she confessed. ' I've been a great disappointment to them.' 'You'll survive!' He smiled down at her rueful face. ' Look how helpful you're being to me.' 'I haven't been trying for very long,' she reminded him, feeling as if she had known him for much longer than one half day. ' I like my work and I never did think I could be a good teacher.' 'Was that what your people wanted you to do?' he asked. ' For you to be a schoolma'am?' 'Yes.' Her smile obliterated the seriousness in her eyes. ' But it's like nursing—you have to be dedicated.' 'I guess so,' he agreed. ' All that blood-and-bandages and chalk-andblackboards! You look as if you enjoyed an outdoor life.' He was studying her closely, weighing up her potential usefulness to him, but Catherine's attention had strayed from their conversation for a moment. Her eyes had been drawn, almost against her will, to the far end of the room, to the tall figure in the restaurant doorway, a man who would stand head and shoulders above most of the other men in the room. There was an aura about this stranger which she could not quite define, and as he moved forward she saw the mass of thick black hair growing above the high, narrow forehead and the dark, finely-marked eyebrows above the thin aquiline nose which gave the face an almost hawk-like appearance as he looked about him.

He remained unattended for less than a moment, however. The head waiter rushed to his side. Someone of importance, Catherine presumed; a man accustomed to deferential treatment by right. As they passed behind her chair she heard the head waiter say: 'It isn't often- we have the pleasure of your company in Edinburgh, sir. Are you going to be with us for a day or two?' The answer was lost in the hubbub of the general conversation at the surrounding tables, and Catherine found herself turning back to Warren Harper wondering what that reply would have been. The man had worn a city suit, but this dominating stranger didn't belong in any town. The piercing eyes under their dark brows reflected a restlessness and intolerance of the crowded scene which was quite obvious, although he had spoken with the waiter on familiar terms. As he had smiled for a brief moment in recognition of the older man's welcome some of the hardness had gone out of his face, making him look younger, but almost instantly the arrogant mask had been replaced. 'I've been wondering,' Warren Harper said, ' how you would feel about leaving Edinburgh.' Catherine gave him her complete attention. 'I don't think it would worry me a great deal,' she admitted. 'And your parents?' She looked away from his probing gaze. 'They would probably consider it quite a good thing,' she was forced to confess. ' " Spreading my wings ", I suppose they would call it.' He lit a cigarette.

'Even when I take over at Crane,' he said, ' I'm going to need a stenographer. I'll need someone up there who can take charge while I'm away. Maybe it's more of a social secretary I have in mind, to help, my mother as much as me.' He looked directly into her surprised eyes. ' How about it, Miss Roy? Do you think the agency would spare you for the whole of six months? Your boss sounded an accommodating sort of woman when I met her, and I feel you're the kind of person we need at Crane.' Catherine found it difficult to hide her astonishment. 'I don't know what to say,' she admitted. ' I—can't make up my mind, just like that. How long could I have to think it over?' 'I've booked your services for a week,' he reminded her. ' That ought to be long enough. I'd want you to go on ahead of me to the castle and open it up a bit. There's a caretaker of sorts, I believe, but we'll need a housekeeper. You could maybe interview some here, in Edinburgh, before you set out. I have to be in Switzerland for a few days on business and I'd have to leave it to you entirely. What I want to make sure about is that there won't be any snags when my family gets there. That's the main point. It's got to be like coming home for them. I think you could cope.' She flushed slightly at the direct compliment, her pulses beginning to stir with a strange excitement. Glen Fionn and Crane sounded remote and lovely. All her life she had harboured a deep love of the Highlands, aware of the enchantment of high and secret mountain peaks and deep, lone lochans aflame with yellow water-lilies and rivers rushing in spate towards the sea. Her family had spent holiday after holiday west of the Great Glen, and that was where she wanted to be. Suddenly, and yet not suddenly, because she had left her heart there long ago.

'I don't really belong in a city either,' she said, half beneath her breath. ' Maybe I will go.' 'Take your week to think about it,' Warren Harper advised. ' Six months isn't too long. It's all I can promise you at the present time.' He signalled to the waiter for his bill, signing it with his room number when it was put before him. ' As I told you, I'm meeting the owner of Crane this afternoon. The lawyer doesn't hold out much hope for a direct sale yet, but I may be able to break him down. I'll try, anyway, and you can wish me luck!' Catherine got to her feet without wishing him his hoped-for victory, however. Somehow, the thought of Crane made her feel sad. 'Off you go and have a walk round the Gardens before you start work again,' Harper advised as they reached the foyer. ' If I'm not back before five o'clock, I'll see you in the morning.'

CHAPTER II The time passed quickly. Catherine was kept busy. The ramifications of Warren Harper's business empire proved to be enormous. There were letters to Zurich and Geneva; Cairo and Stockholm; London and Moscow. His interests weren't entirely confined to timber. They embraced a dozen sidelines, all of them obviously paying propositions, and he had agents in every capital city. A big man in more ways than one. When five o'clock came he was still absent, still arguing, perhaps, with the unfortunate owner of Crane. More and more she felt her sympathy deepening for the man who might be forced to sell his home. Knowing Scotland so intimately, she guessed that Crane had stood there in Glen Fionn for hundreds of years and its present owner could well be the direct descendant of the original laird. Sympathy was all very well, sympathy for an unknown man, but it was more than compassion he needed. It was money. The money to pay off a debt which the estate he had inherited couldn't meet. The thought rankled in the back of her mind all the way home, yet it was really no concern of hers. She hadn't even promised to go to Glen Fionn, Not yet. As she got down from the bus at the corner of the road a car drew up behind her. 'If I'd known you were going to be home as early as this I could have picked you up in town.' Her mother's precise, cultured voice hailed her from the kerb. ' You don't seem to be particularly busy these days. Of course, I know absolutely nothing about commerce,' she added, opening the car door for Catherine to get in. 'I've been getting some books for Colin,' she explained priggishly. ' He simply must have them, although it's an appalling expense.'

'Couldn't he borrow them from the library, like everybody else?' Catherine suggested. 'I prefer him to have them.' Isobel Roy sighed. 'You never will understand, Cathie.' 'I'm fond of books,' Catherine almost snapped, 'but Colin doesn't need to own every single volume that's mentioned in the syllabus.' Her mother's temper snapped. 'It's no use you criticizing,' she warned. ' You were given your chance.' 'And I didn't take it,' Catherine said quietly. 'I know, Mother. I didn't want to be a teacher.' 'An M.A. degree never did anyone any harm.' Isobel's lips were thin. ' All your friends have graduated. I can't see why you had to be the awkward one.' 'Maybe I just wasn't clever enough.' Catherine knew she had been a disappointment to this ambitious woman. 'I'm happy as I am, funnily enough.' Suddenly she added: ' I've got the chance of a very good job.' Her mother changed gears to negotiate the hill before she answered. 'That's very nice,' she said without enthusiasm. ' I suppose you will get on, eventually.' 'It's only temporary at present.' The colour rose in Catherine's cheeks. ' But it just might last. It—isn't in Edinburgh.' 'Oh?' Isobel Roy turned the car in between the gateposts of Claremount. ' Where do you propose to go?'

'To Glen Fionn.' 'Glen Fionn?' Isobel's brows came together. ' What a preposterous idea. It sounds as if it might be somewhere in the Highlands, if I haven't forgotten my Gaelic. What could possibly take you there?' 'The offer of something different, something I think I would like,' Catherine said. 'Well, you know your own mind best.' Isobel braked at the front door and the car halted with a jerk. ' We won't stand in your way if this is really what you want.' Catherine gathered up the pile of books from the back seat. Why, she wondered, did she feel cheated, thrust aside? She had said this was what she wanted to do, but was it? Did she really want to leave Edinburgh? Her home meant much to her and she was happy enough. She could truthfully say that she wasn't at all jealous of Colin, of the adulation her parents poured out at the feet of their brilliant son. In a good many ways Colin was human enough. Left to himself; he could have been bright and much better company. Fundamentally studious and reserved, he was studying for the Bar and he had a long way to go, but he would get there. He would live with his nose to the grindstone for years and never think of relaxation; he would cover himself with academic glory and lose his youth. 'Colin's staying in town this evening,' her mother told her. ' There's a debate in the Union. Will you take his books up to his room for me? He'll want to look through them as soon as he comes in, I dare say.' She smiled with justifiable pride, peeling off her gloves. They were rather shabby gloves, lying beside a once- glorious crocodile handbag, which was her status symbol. That and her musquash coat. 'Don't worry about dinner,' Catherine said. ' I'll get it.'

She was happy and contented in the kitchen and for the next hour she occupied hands and thoughts in the preparation of their evening meal. There was broth from the day before to be used up and her mother had brought in some fillet steak. She prepared potatoes and two vegetables and, on impulse, she baked an apple pie, which was her father's favourite sweet. The big, old-fashioned kitchen was warm now. She had stoked up the fire and the heat from the electric grill flushed her cheeks so that, when she turned from the cooker at the sound of her father's voice, he thought that she looked really pretty, with her red-gold hair ruffled a little and her eyes welcoming him. 'Dad,' she asked when he came to peer into one of the pots, ' what would you think if I took a job away from home?' He looked surprised, but he said without hesitation: 'I'd miss a very good cook, but I think you would be wise to go. Is it at your own job?' 'Yes.' She drew a deep breath. ' I've had an offer to go as secretary to a Canadian family. They're taking a place in the Highlands for six months, hoping to buy it eventually.' 'I see.' Unexpectedly he put his arm about her shoulders. ' It's up to you, Cathie,' he said. Absurdly, tears were struggling behind her eyes. She looked away from his kindly smile. 'It will do you good,' he said. ' Young people ought to spread their wings.'

But not Colin. The thought thrust itself at her out of nowhere. She looked up at him and, surprisingly, there was understanding in his tired grey eyes. 'You'll come back refreshed,' he said. ' Six months isn't a lifetime.' 'That's true,' she agreed. ' Do you know Glen Fionn, Dad?' 'Not very well.' He sniffed at the savoury smell emanating from the oven. ' Apple pie, or I'm a Dutchman ! It's in Badenoch, a wild enough region. What's taking your Canadian family there?' 'I don't know,' she was forced to confess. ' I've only met one of them. I suppose you could call him the head of the family. He's very nice.' 'Will the agency let you go?' he asked on his way through to the hall. 'Why not? That's what we're there for. One day, two weeks, six months—it's all the same. I can come back to the agency whenever I like. Our jobs aren't permanent.' 'I envy you,' he said, ' going up there just now. The glens will be at their- best—and the fishing. I once landed a salmon at Kincraig that put up the toughest fight for survival I've ever seen. He was a big fellow, well known to the local ghillies, and I caught him! It seemed almost sacrilege to take him away with me. He belonged there, where he was spawned. He was never meant to be conquered.' Long before she had served the meal Catherine had made up her mind. She was going to Glen Fionn. When Colin came in shortly after ten o'clock she told him her news. 'But, Cathie,' he protested, ' how can you? We're used to your being here.'

She smiled rather wanly. 'Are you? Well, I'm not going far away,' she assured him. ' Maybe you could come up and see me in the Christmas vacation. There's bound to be a hotel of sorts somewhere in the vicinity.' 'I'd like that,' he said with more enthusiasm than she had expected. ' I could study like mad afterwards, to make up.' 'To make up for enjoying yourself?' She ruffled his fair hair. ' Maybe we both take life too seriously, Colin,' she added. The following morning she told Warren Harper that she had decided to accept his offer if the job was still open to her. 'It sure is,' he said. ' I'm glad. It's more luck than I've had with Crane. They won't sell. Not on any terms. Not yet. I argued all ways, but the fellow wouldn't listen. Old lawyer Moncrief wasn't much help. He's been the family's man of business for half a century and he goes along with everything they say. The laird's word is law, so to speak, whether he's committing financial suicide or not.' 'I suppose they feel a certain amount of loyalty to an old and respected client,' Catherine pointed out. ' I hope you don't think I'm rushing things, Mr Harper,' she added, ' but I thought I would like to get the job settled.' 'That's just fine with me.' He smiled down at her. ' And now, to business! I've got to be in Zurich on Saturday afternoon, which is sooner than I expected. It's going to leave you with a whole lot more responsibility, but I figure you can cope. Will you see to putting an ad in the local paper for a housekeeper? And as soon as you've got that fixed you'd better go on up to the glen. It'll be all ready for you. I've been assured of that, and maybe the laird himself will be waiting to receive you! He didn't promise, mind you, so don't hold out too

much hope,' he laughed. ' There's a caretaker—a Mrs Sinclair — who'll look after you, but if you can get the housekeeper to travel up with you it might be as well.' 'We're not giving her much time,' Catherine pointed out, ' but I'll do what I can.' She put an advertisement in The Scotsman and one in the Glasgow Herald, although it would be more convenient if she could interview someone from Edinburgh. Feeling slightly nervous and a little bit out of her depth, she sorted through the bunch of replies on Thursday morning, discarding those she considered unsuitable. In the end, she made three appointments, timing the most likely applicant for the final interview. The first woman had good references but she had a teenage daughter, whom she wanted to take with her, understandably enough. The second one looked slovenly and altogether unsuitable, and the third applicant seemed ideal. She had worked for some years in a similar position in the Lowlands and, although she appeared slightly nervous, she seemed eager to have the job. She said she was a widow and her name was Edith Lindsey. Satisfied, Catherine reported to her employer. 'Everything seems more or less settled. You'll be able to fly off to Zurich with an easy mind.' 'I wish you were coming with me,' he said. ' I could use your help, but I've written to the family and told them Crane will be ready for them whenever they decide to come. I'd like it to feel sort of homely, if you know what I mean.'

Catherine nodded. 'Yes,' she said. ' I know.' 'By the way,' she said later the same afternoon, ' I don't know your laird's name. You've always talked about Crane—the castle. If he did happen to be there to meet us it might look rather foolish if I had to ask.' He laughed, laying an enormous box of chocolates on the table before her. 'That's for you,' he said. ' For the journey, and your laird's name is MacAllister. Iain Angus MacAllister of Crane. He couldn't be more Highland if he tried.' 'You don't like him?' she suggested. 'I've only met him once,' he reminded her with a brief shrug. ' We didn't exactly cotton on to each other on that occasion, but I was trying to drive a hard bargain and he was being stubborn. Maybe we'll both mellow with time.' 'I hope so.' She was quite sincere. ' Glen Fionn sounds as if it might be too small for enmity if the laird is still living there.' 'I wouldn't know about that. He's certainly not at the castle.' He stood waiting for her to cover her machine. 'How about a bit of relaxation?' he suggested. ' Dinner tonight, for instance. We're both going to be working pretty hard for the next two weeks.' She hesitated. 'When do you want me to go to Glen Fionn?'

'Next week some time, if you can manage it. I'll write and tell the family to book on a plane some time after that.' He held the door open for her. ' Stacey's crazy to come. She's sixteen. Not a bad kid, though she needs a bit of discipline from time to time. It has always seemed odd to me that my mother couldn't handle Stacey. She never spoiled me.' 'So you think!' She smiled up at him. ' But I'll come to dinner, all the same. What time?' 'Around seven.' He grinned down at her. 'You're good for me, Cathie. Shall we make it the Hansel at half-past seven to give you plenty of time?' The evening flew past on enchanted feet. She had never felt so happy. Warren Harper was a gay and interesting companion. He had travelled all over the world, and the wonder was that he had never married. He could, she supposed, have been too busy building up his timber empire. They danced easily together and he held her close at one point. 'Maybe I was waiting for this, Cathie,' he said. She drew back a little, suddenly uncertain. They had known each other for only a week. 'I'm looking forward to Glen Fionn more than ever now,' he told her before they said goodnight. 'Don't stint the expenses, Cathie. I've put in a draft for you at the bank and you can cash what you need. I want you to have a month's salary in advance. That way I'm sure of keeping you!' His arm tightened about her as they stood in the shelter of the bedraggled rhododendrons flanking the path to Claremount. ' Now that I've found you,' he added.

She drew away, holding his hand to say goodnight. 'Have a nice trip,' she said as steadily as she could. 'I'll contact the caretaker and we'll travel up to Glen Fionn next week.' 'See you do,' he smiled. ' I'll phone you around Thursday from Switzerland.' Her life seemed to have changed dramatically. Her quiet life. 'Was that the boss?' Colin asked, coming downstairs as she closed the vestibule door behind her. ' He looked quite young.' Catherine eased off her shoes. 'Don't go telling Mother that or she'll get ideas into her head!' She followed him through to the kitchen. ' He's off to Zurich and I'm going north next week to pave the way for his family coming from Montreal. What could be more correct?' 'Nothing, it would seem.' He hesitated. ' I've been looking up your glen on the map. You seem to have picked a pretty isolated spot, so are you sure about this? Absolutely sure?' She nodded emphatically. 'I couldn't change my mind now, even if I wanted to,' she said. ' I've promised. Do you want a sandwich? I notice a somewhat "lean and hungry look", Cassius! You've been burning the midnight oil.' They sat in the kitchen over their sandwiches and hot milk till one o'clock.

'There's a hotel of sorts up there,' Colin said, his thoughts reverting to the glen. 'It's not exactly in Glen Fionn, but it's quite near. A fellow I know went up there two years ago pony-trekking. It was one of the overnight stops. Maybe I could come up for a few days later on.' 'I wish you would,' Catherine said, feeling suddenly alone. ' I'll write and let you know what it's like.' Two days later she discovered that she would have to make the journey to Glen Fionn on her own. Edith Lindsey wrote to say that she couldn't travel to Crane till the following week. It was a nuisance, but not exactly an unsurmountable barrier. She was perfectly capable of keeping house till Mrs Lindsey arrived. Besides, there was the caretaker already at the castle. She might be persuaded to sleep in, if Crane was really isolated, and surely there would be a ghillie or a gamekeeper around. Her mother drove her to the station. 'I'm not too sure that I like this idea,' she remarked half-heartedly just as the train was about to move. ' It isn't the distance, it's the isolation of the place. You've always lived in a city.' 'I'll survive.' Catherine smiled, looking along the platform to where a tall, oddly-familiar figure was striding towards them. ' And if I can't cope I'll come home.' The man she felt that she ought to recognize drew level and passed. She had seen him before, that day in the restaurant of the hotel while she had been lunching with Warren Harper. There could be no mistaking the proud lift of his head and the almost arrogant walk. The porter in attendance had to run to keep up with him, and once again she got the impression that he was well known.

'You'll write, of course,' her mother was saying. ' We'll be anxious to hear what the castle is like.' The train drew away. Isobel Roy didn't linger. She disliked longdrawn-out farewells. Catherine waved vaguely to her half-turned back and pulled up the corridor window. Almost instantly she was conscious of a sense of freedom, of being on her own, at last, to please herself. Somehow, she felt that she had to make a new life for herself, now or never. As the train thundered over the Forth bridge she looked down at the blue firth with its tiny specks of shipping and felt far removed from the world she had known for twenty-two years. Ahead of her lay the unknown, but she had no fear. She looked east, into the eye of the sun, picking out the familiar line of the Fifeshire coast, and west towards the crowding mountains ahead of her, and a strange excitement stirred in her veins. After Perth the train seemed to meander more leisurely, climbing steadily towards the great barrier of the Grampians, and at Dunkeld the hills came close. They were still wooded and kind, with wide glens running through them, and in places the blue lochs on either side of the railway line lay almost under the carriage wheels. The Tay thundered its way towards the sea and the noisy Tummei leapt through the Pass of Killiecrankie with a mighty, triumphant shout. There was water everywhere: the blue water of silent lochs; the brown, still water of the peat bogs, and the roaring torrents of silver rivers cascading over their gravelly beds. Dappled in light and shade, the laughing burns ran down to meet them, mingling in their glee, and far and distant the great mountain peaks stood waiting, remote and austere, keeping their own counsel, giving nothing away. Looking at their grim faces, she felt suddenly perturbed. The train approached them with caution, although today the sun was on them.

Ben Vrachie and Ben-y-Gloe and stark Beinn Dearg raised their arrogant heads against a cloudless sky and the distant Cairngorms were as blue as their name. The train tan along Glen Garry, accompanying the river through the gorge. It was quiet here, shady and restful, with the tall pines of the Atholl Forest rising on either side. The carriage wheels made a deep swishing sound, pressing on to the dark Pass of Drumochter. 'Dalwhinnie next stop!' The attendant came along the corridor and Catherine moved to the carriage door. 'I do get down here for Glen Fionn?' she asked. The man scratched his head. 'That's right, but it's a fair journey, miss, after that. You'll be met, though,' he suggested. ' There isn't any rail connection.' 'No. I understand I have to go on by bus,' Catherine said. 'They'll be few and far between,' he informed her unhelpfully. ' Dalwhinnie next stop!' Catherine gathered her hand luggage together. She had a cabin trunk in the guard's van, holding all her worldly possessions apart from her books. I mean to stay, she thought, smiling at the idea. Dalwhinnie was cold even on this sunny, early autumn day. The winds sped down from the surrounding glens to this high meetingplace among the mountains, vigorous and strong, with the kiss of ice already on their lips. Catherine drew in a deep breath as she struggled into her coat. The train had been overheated, she supposed, feeling suddenly chilled.

Several passengers and an accumulation of luggage adorned the platform. She would have to find a porter to cope with her trunk. 'Are you going on, miss?' the man asked when she had finally claimed his attention. ' I thought maybe you'd be for the hotel.' 'I'm going to Glen Fionn.' 'Is that so?' He regarded her with frank curiosity. 'If I had known you were for the glen, now, I could have got you a lift. The laird has just driven away. He had a load of stuff to take back with him, but he would have made room for you, no doubt. You'll be for Tordarroch or the farm,' he decided. ' You've a while to wait for the bus. There's only two go through a day.' 'I've a cabin trunk and this suitcase,' she told him hesitantly. ' Would the bus take them or will they have to come by carrier?' 'The bus might, though he's not supposed to,' she was informed. ' I'll see what I can do. Dugald McLean's an accommodating man, but it's a pity you missed the laird.' A pity in more ways than one, Catherine thought, but the laird had been swiftly off his mark, anxious to return to the glen. It was over an hour before the bus trundled in. Her trunk, it was decided, had better come on by carrier ' in a day or two '. There was nothing certain about it. She would be lucky, she supposed, if she saw it within a week. 'Most folk have their own conveyance round about here,' the porter told her. ' A jeep or a heavy car.' She tipped the man, glad of the good seat he had secured for her in the bus out of the biting wind. Two other passengers got in before they moved away, both of them pleasant, fresh-faced countrywomen

laden with heavy shopping baskets which they deposited on the empty seat in front of them. At the first stop they picked up several schoolchildren who were let down in ones and twos at the entrance to every glen. The two women got out together at a little village among the hills, glancing at her curiously as they passed. It seemed to Catherine that they were now driving straight into the mountains. Their steep, dark sides hemmed in the narrow road, rearing up like hostile giants to bar her way. Then, suddenly, the bus turned a corner and a long, sun-filled valley opened out to the north. The driver leaned back in his seat, half-turning to explain: 'This is the start of the glen. I go up to the powder mills, but if there's any special place you're wanting I'll goon.' She said, as if she ought to keep it to herself: 'I'm going to the castle.' The bus lurched almost to a standstill. 'To Crane?' he repeated, flabbergasted. 'I'd never have thought -' He hesitated. ' Ay, well, you've farther to go than the mills. They made gunpowder up here during the war.' Which war he didn't say. ' I can take you to the castle gates, if you like, but you'll have to manage by yourself after that, for they'll be fast shut, I'm thinking.' He thrust the engine into bottom gear to negotiate a treacherous bend where the road overhung a deep gully. ' You're sure of where you want to go?' he added doubtfully. 'Quite sure.' Catherine's heart seemed to drum loudly in the silence. ' I understand there's a caretaker at Crane, a Mrs Sinclair. Surely she must be expecting me.' 'No doubt she will be,' the man answered, ' if you're coming to stay.'

She didn't answer that, aware of his curiosity and doubt. He would soon get to know all about her. They drove along the glen, passing a group of stone- built cottages and a little church on the hill. The tiny clachan appeared to be deserted, though fowls and sheep strayed across the road. The end cottage turned out to be the post-office and local store and they stopped here to hand out several parcels and a bundle of newspapers. The woman who came to collect them stared at Catherine in surprise, said it was a fine day, and continued her conversation with the driver. 'I've just had the laird in,' she said. ' It's the first .time I've seen him for weeks. He was looking well. They're telling me that there's to be changes up at the castle, Dugald. Would you be knowing about them?' 'Ay and no.' The driver gave her a meaning look. ' I'll be picking up these empty crates for you on the way down, Morag. See and have them ready.' Morag glanced with renewed curiosity at the sole occupant of the bus, nodding briefly as they drove away. Beyond the village the glen broadened out to cradle a long, narrow loch, its glassy surface reflecting a whole inverted firmament of mountains and trees and sky. Now that the sun was drawing rapidly towards the west, the shadows were creeping down the hillsides, lending the scene an added mystery and beauty. The whole glen was suddenly aflame with the glory of autumn. The pale yellow larches, the burnished copper beeches and the dying birch blazed like glowing candles against the sombre green of pine and spruce, making Catherine catch her breath in wordless admiration. This was surely the loveliest place she had ever seen, but even as she looked there was something heartbreaking about its quiet serenity. Its beauty caught at the heart, but already there was conflict here.

She felt it, like some tangible thing, as they drove along the lochside and past the ruined powder mills, but nothing could have prepared her for the beauty and the loneliness of Crane. The castle gates were indeed closed against them. They looked as if they had been shut tightly like that for a hundred years. Grass grew on the margin of the wide sweep of gravel where Dugald turned his bus, and giant Douglas firs clustered in a thick and hostile phalanx between her and her destination. 'How far is it?' she asked. 'About half a mile. You'll follow the drive and come back to the lochside, and Crane's there. You can't see it from the road.' She thanked him, decided to tip him, and walked towards the great iron gates. They creaked in protest as she opened them. 'Good luck to you,' the man called after her. ' I'm thinking you'll be needing it. It's a lonely place for a young woman such as yourself.' There was bound to be someone at the castle, Catherine told herself. After all, the gate hadn't been locked and the caretaker knew she was coming. Under the giant trees the driveway was cool and full of shadows and the scent of wood smoke drifted down to her from the hill. She heard the bleating of sheep in the distance and the bark of a dog, and where the rays of sunlight filtered through the trees she stood for a moment on an ancient stone bridge looking down into a deep brown burn. The parapet under her gloved hand was covered in moss, with tiny hart's tongue ferns growing between the stones and a blue-flowered plant creeping everywhere.

Enchantment made her linger in this quiet place before she took up her suitcase again and crossed the bridge. Coming suddenly on the castle, she stopped once more, holding her breath in sheer delight. It was lovely beyond imagining, a perfect little baronial keep standing in a clearing among the hills. It looked across the sunlit loch to the grim and rugged mountains beyond, with Cairn Toul and Braeriach and Ben Macdhui shouldering each other to the north, its pink sandstone walls deepened to rose, its grey turreted tower barely topping the surrounding firs. There was no formal garden. A rough lawn edged with yew dropped in terraces to the lochside and a hedge of golden privet fenced in an ornamental pool and the rose garden. The neglected driveway took her round to the front door, where it ended in a wide terrace overlooking a flight of stone steps. The great nailed door set into the castle wall was firmly closed. Crane, Catherine thought, didn't welcome visitors. She looked up at the narrow windows set in its grim old face and felt rebuffed. After the barest hesitation she pulled the ancient bell- iron, sending its echoes through the house, but it was several minutes before footsteps sounded on the other side of the door in answer to her summons. Bolts were pulled and the door moved inwards. With a sense of immeasurable relief she found herself confronted by a short, elderly woman in a flowered apron. 'You'll be Miss Roy,' she suggested pleasantly. 'Will you please come in? Did Dugald not bring up your case for you? My, but he's a lazy character, and no mistake! It's lucky it was for him he got the busdriving, for he was never good for much else.'

Catherine stepped over the threshold, more glad of. this pleasant welcome than she cared to admit. The entrance hall was dim and shadowy, lit only by two narrow windows in deep stone embrasures on either side of the door, but a flight of stone steps led immediately to a higher, larger hallway with a minstrels' gallery looking down on a wide stone fireplace and some comfortable chairs. The walls were panelled and set with portraits and ancient firearms. It had all been dusted and kept clean, but it looked curiously lifeless. Crane was a place to be lived in. Her guide turned to look at her with the frankness she was learning to accept. 'I thought you were bringing a housekeeper with you,' she said. ' You're young to be left here on your own.' Catherine's heart sank. 'I was hoping I could persuade you to stay, Mrs Sinclair,' she said. ' It would only be for a day or two, till Mrs Lindsey arrives from Edinburgh.' Janet Sinclair shook her head. 'I couldn't do it,' she said. 'Then perhaps you know someone from the village who might oblige, just for a night or two?' Apprehension clutched at Catherine's throat. ' Someone who hasn't any ties.' 'I know of no one.' Janet seemed to be struggling with a desire for truth. ' No one who would come, that is to say.' Catherine faced her squarely.

'Mrs Sinclair,' she said, ' are you trying to tell me that everyone is prejudiced against us from the start, that we're not exactly welcome here at Crane?' Janet looked taken aback. 'I wouldn't be saying so,' she answered. ' It's just that they're loyal to the master. They don't like to see him living as he does while there's strangers here in his own home.' 'But Mr MacAllister has rented the castle of his own free will,' Catherine protested. ' He can't expect -' 'Not of his own free will,' Janet corrected her. ' It was because he had to do it, because there was no other way. It must have taken the very heart out of him to leave it.' 'Yes.' Catherine could only agree to that, looking about her at the portraits and the spears and the heavy old furniture which were all part of Crane, owned down the years by MacAllister after MacAllister, father and son following one another in unbroken succession since the castle was built. Five or six generations of these men. Four hundred years of belonging. 'It's always sad when someone has to leave a dearly loved home,' she said slowly, 'but perhaps Mr MacAllister will come back one day.' Janet gave her an odd, distant smile. 'There's talk about the castle being sold outright,' she said. ' I thought you might be knowing about that.' 'I haven't been Mr Harper's secretary long enough to know very much about his future plans,' Catherine said as she was led up the

magnificent mahogany staircase which dominated the hall. ' His mother and sister are coming from Canada. That's all I can tell you.' 'They wouldn't be coming all that way just for a holiday at a place like Crane and in the winter weather,' Janet observed shrewdly. ' No, it looks to me as if the laird is being forced to sell, and there's not a body in the glen who will take kindly to the idea.' 'I'm sorry,' Catherine said quite sincerely as they mounted a second, narrower stone stairway. ' It does seem a pity if the Harpers are going to meet with opposition through no fault of their own.' 'They're strangers,' Janet reminded her doggedly. ' And the laird's our own.' There was nothing Catherine could say to that. She contented herself with admiring the room which had been aired for her while Janet went off ' to see to her tea'. The small, compact sitting-room was plainly but comfortably furnished and a wood fire burned cheerfully in the iron grate. She held her hands out to its comforting glow, feeling warm for the first time since she had got off the train. To her surprised delight the bedroom adjoining this room was completely round, with one tiny window high in the wall. The rooms were set in one of the turrets which adorned the corners of the castle and the sitting-room gave on to a narrow stone balcony close under the crow-stepped roof. The door leading to the balcony was locked, however, and there was no key. Catherine took off her coat and tidied her hair, prepared to go back down the winding staircase in search of Janet, but the caretaker was already coming back along the corridor with a tray in her hands.

'You shouldn't have come up all this way,' Catherine protested. ' I was coming down.' 'You'll be warmer here,' Janet assured her. ' There isn't another fire, except in the kitchen.' She pushed past with the tray. ' The master said it would be the best place to put you till you made up your own mind where you wanted to be.' So the laird had still some say at Crane, Catherine mused. He had been here, he had given Janet his orders, but he had left, deliberately, perhaps, before she had arrived. Impelled by something more than just idle curiosity, she wanted to know more about him. 'Where does Mr MacAllister live now?' she asked as Janet poured her tea. 'He's at Dromore.' Janet's lips were closely set. ' A cold, inhospitable place, if ever there was one. I've been thinking,' she added before Catherine could reply, ' since you can't be left here on your own, I'll be going back to the clachan and bringing my nightgown. I'll stay the night with you. Would you be expecting your housekeeper in the morning?' 'I don't know, Mrs Sinclair, but I'm terribly grateful to you for offering to come back,' Catherine confessed. 'You'd better call me Janet,' she was informed. ' It's a lot easier. And now I'll leave you to your tea. There's a poached egg on toast and some of my home- baked scones and a pancake or two.' 'Janet,' Catherine asked before she turned away, ' is there a key to the balcony door? There must be a wonderful view up the glen from out there.' Janet halted in her tracks.

'There is a key,' she answered slowly, 'but it's not to be used. The master took it away on the night of the accident and the balcony doors haven't been opened since. It happened on the main balcony, but this one is nearly as high.' Janet sighed. ' He's been a changed man since that terrible day, and it would seem that trouble begets trouble, for he's never really lived at Crane since. The debts were accumulating even then, so that he had to let or sell. He went to Dromore within a year and he's been there ever since.' She had disappeared before Catherine could frame the question trembling on her lips. What was the accident—the tragedy, perhaps—which had driven Iain MacAllister from Crane sooner than he might have gone?

CHAPTER III The sun seemed reluctant to desert the turret room, and Catherine stayed there, waiting for Mrs Sinclair's return. In retrospect the, remainder of the house seemed inhospitable in comparison and she had no desire to explore it until Janet could act as her guide. Her small, secluded domain under the crow-stepped roof took on the proportions of a sanctuary as she waited, although she crossed often to the balcony door to look out. The view from her high vantage point was magnificent. She could see the whole glen with its loch stretching like a silver mirror to the disused powder mills and the grey roofs of the clachan beyond. The white ribbon of the road followed the indentations of the loch until it ended at the castle gates, but now she made out a narrower, steeper road winding towards the head of the glen. Disappearing occasionally beneath the pines, it emerged at last on the bare hillside where there didn't appear to be any human habitation at all. High up there the rounded, heather-clad slopes gave place to open scree and then to dark and awful mountain peaks cleft by a narrow pass, as if a giant had thrust his sword between them to conquer or destroy. The road probably led to another glen, a higher, hidden place guarded by these dark, unsmiling peaks. Suddenly she was aware of a movement above the treeline and her narrowed eyes picked out the gliding descent of a giant bird as it skimmed down from the pass. Slowly it hovered above the scree, remote and pitiless in its own domain, a single golden eagle patrolling the entrance to its mountain retreat. It looked magnificent up there against the hills and she stood watching it for several minutes until another, nearer movement claimed her attention. A man and a dog were coming down the hill road towards the loch— towards Crane.

A shepherd, perhaps, making his way home to some croft farther down the glen. He came towards the castle, surely and steadily, with a purposefulness and arrogance in his long stride which was vaguely, disturbingly familiar. She could see now that he wore the kilt and the long staff he carried was probably a cromag. When he cleared the trees he looked up at Crane as if, even now, he was about to hesitate, and then he came on. Unless she had been out on the forbidden balcony as he had approached he couldn't possibly have seen her standing there, but he glanced upwards towards the turrets as he crossed the rough lawn between the yews. Catherine's heartbeats quickened. What had he to do with Crane? Was he shepherd, ghillie, gamekeeper or casual acquaintance? Certainly he was no stranger to the place. The dog, too, knew its way about, bounding joyfully ahead of him until it was lost to sight from her high vantage point close under the roof. In a moment or two, if he wished to gain entrance, the man would ring the ancient bell at the main door. She stood waiting, her breath held, until the bell clamoured against the stillness of the hall below. It was almost dark on the winding staircase with only a gleam of light penetrating in through the deeply- recessed arrow-slits in the thick walls to guide her down. There seemed to be some form of electric lighting, but she had no idea where to find a switch. Her feet lagged and the walls felt cold under her touch until she reached the upper hall. If only Janet had come back! She paused beneath the minstrels' gallery, suddenly aware of a row of piercing eyes surveying her from the panelled walls. The portraits she had noticed fleetingly on her way up seemed to have come to life, regarding her, the intruder, with suspicion and hostility. The

MacAllisters down through the centuries were all alike, amazingly alike, and the odd thing was that she seemed to know them. The dark, aloof faces with their high- bridged nose and deeply-set eyes were strangely familiar. She fled down the few remaining steps to the front door. It had been re-bolted. Janet must have gone out by the back way, through the kitchens. A dog snuffed at the other side of the door, wanting to be let in, and she took courage from the friendly sound to withdraw the bolts. When she opened the door she found herself face to face with the man who had come down off the hill. No shepherd this, she thought automatically. No ordinary shepherd. Then something familiar about him made her draw back. She had seen this man before. Not just up there on the dim staircase looking down at her from frame after frame, one of a row of portraits that might have been of the same man, but long before that. Not in an ancient kilt, as he stood now, with the ram's horn cromag in his hand, but in a city suit and again in hand-woven tweeds boarding the same north-bound train. 'I saw you in Edinburgh,' she said foolishly. ' You were there, that day in the hotel.' Intensely blue eyes looked down into her own. 'You have me at a disadvantage,' he said. ' Have we met before?' 'No—no, of course not.' She held the door open. ' I was just very much surprised. I noticed you in the hotel while I was having lunch and again at the station. We must have travelled on the same train. You're Mr MacAllister.' She stood aside to allow him to come in. ' I've been studying the family portraits,' she explained.

He stepped back on to the gravel, refusing her unspoken invitation to enter his own house. 'I came to see if you were comfortably settled in,' he said stiltedly. ' I noticed Janet cycling off down the glen some time ago.' Catherine felt taken aback. He had obviously no intention of accepting hospitality at Crane—a stranger's hospitality. 'Janet's coming back,' she explained. ' She thought I shouldn't spend the night here alone.' 'Alone?' He looked surprised. ' But surely you have company? I understand there was a housekeeper and a secretary coming together.' 'I'm the secretary,' Catherine explained. ' Mr Harper won't be coming up for a day or two. As a matter of fact, his family might arrive first.' She hesitated. ' I'd like to get the—feeling of the house before they come,' she added. ' To make it seem—welcoming.' It wasn't quite what she had meant to say, and she saw him stiffen. 'That shouldn't be hard,' he said. ' Crane has been welcoming visitors for four hundred years.' The grim set of his jaw hardened his whole expression as he looked up at the shadowed buttresses and the blue eyes were like flint as they steadied on the stone balcony above the jutting west wing. It overlooked the front of the castle and the wide stretch of rough grass dropping down to the loch and it must have commanded an even wider view than Catherine's smaller balcony on the gable end of the house. The collie, less reluctant than its master, had disappeared into the dimmer regions at the back of the hall,

'Please come in,' Catherine ventured, ' if it's only to rescue your dog! I'm afraid I don't know my way around yet. Janet put me up in the turret rooms and I've been there ever since, wondering how I was going to find the light, switches if she didn't come back!' 'Janet will come if she promised,' he said. ' And the light switches are on the ledge of the panelling just inside the doors. My father didn't want them to be seen. They're fairly-high up, but you ought to be able to reach them. If you'll come round to the stables,' he suggested, moving deliberately away from the door, ' I'll show you how to start the motor. It's fairly simple. We have our own plant, of course. Crane is too isolated for the hydro-electric board to service us at present. I dare say our turn will come eventually,' he added as the collie came back to join them. The dog stood gazing up at his master, tongue lolling, eyes questioning. 'Perhaps he's thirsty,' Catherine suggested. 'Do let me get him a drink.' 'He's scrounging.' For the first time Iain MacAllister smiled. ' Janet spoils him. A working dog shouldn't be fed tit-bits.' 'You're much too hard on him.' Catherine bent to stroke the rich, glossy coat. ' He's terribly thin.' 'He has all the food he needs.' He put out his stick, barring the way to the door. ' No, Liath, you're begging, and that's not how it should be!' The collie lay down at his feet. 'I won't shut the door,' Catherine said. ' Janet may come back.'

And she might even persuade you to come in, she thought. There was no reason why he should remain aloof; none that she could understand. He led the way round the side of the house across a paved yard to some outbuildings which had been constructed of the same pinkishcoloured stone but had probably been erected at a much later date. They were quite apart from the castle and were less mellowed by age. Catherine noticed half a dozen empty loose-boxes, a garage capable of housing two cars, and two large storage sheds. Her companion slid the door of one of the sheds open and went in ahead of her, striking a match so that she could see before he pulled down a stable lantern and lit it. The shed was empty apart from a well-kept lighting plant and a few drums of oil standing against one of the whitewashed walls. 'Duncan will take charge as soon as he gets back from Fort William,' he explained. ' He went off this morning to have a tooth out, I'm told, but maybe it was for some other reason.' He bent over the plant. ' I'll send him up as soon as he gets back. I promised to supply you with a handyman to do this sort of thing, and Duncan seemed to fill the bill.' Catherine couldn't help remembering the reluctance of the glen folk to serve the strangers at Crane, and suddenly she felt angry. 'Maybe Duncan is like the others, Mr MacAllister,' she observed. ' He just doesn't want to serve two masters.' He straightened from his self-imposed task, towering above her in the tiny shed. 'Duncan will serve you if I say so,' he said without arrogance. ' One can't exactly condemn a man for his loyalty.'

She felt ashamed and longed to say so, but he was difficult to approach. He had built a wall about himself, a defensive rampart which she might never be able to scale however much she tried. 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. ' I didn't mean that. But it is difficult to come to a strange place and find you're not wanted.' He smiled without humour, his lips twisting painfully as he said: 'Believe me, Miss Roy, you are more than wanted. You and Mr Harper and his family. Without your employer's bountiful support Crane would have come under the hammer a week ago. This lease has helped me to stave off the evil day, and for that alone I am grateful.' There was nothing she could say to him. His pride would not allow him her pity. He had saved Crane for the time being and although, eventually, he might have to sell, he would not discuss it with a stranger. The little diesel engine was chugging contentedly when they left it, closing the shed door behind them. 'It isn't hard on fuel,' he told her. ' Your supplies come up with the carrier once a fortnight and that gives you adequate lighting. Otherwise, you will have to use peat and wood. The price of coal is prohibitive up here.' 'I won't mind about that,' she assured him, walking briskly by his side. ' I love the smell of peat, and there's nothing like a log fire for real warmth. Probably the Harpers are used to wood fires, being Canadian.' He nodded abruptly. 'You haven't come from Canada?'

'Oh, no, only from Edinburgh,' Catherine explained. ' Mr Harper employed me there through an agency. I suppose I'm more or less a social secretary. I understand that Mrs Harper will want to entertain once she arrives.' He glanced up at the pink walls of Crane, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. 'She will have every opportunity,' he said briefly.- ' It was never difficult to get people to come.' Before they reached the door he turned to whistle for the collie. Liath came bounding round the far gable, imagining that he had come home to stay, but this time Catherine didn't press her hospitality. She knew that it would be refused. Iain MacAllister bade her an abrupt' good afternoon', signalled to the dog, and strode off in the direction of the main gates. Standing at the open door, Catherine watched him go, a tall, broadshouldered, kilted figure swinging purposefully down the weedgrown drive, looking every inch the laird although the estate might be slipping slowly but surely out of his grasp. An hour passed before Janet returned. In the meantime Catherine had switched on the lights in the hall and done a little exploring, finding the kitchens and a cosy morning-room facing the hills at the back of the house and a long, panelled banqueting hall looking out over the loch. The drawing-room was on the first floor, its furniture shrouded in striped dust-covers, a room used only on formal occasions, she supposed. 'Duncan McFee's come back,' Janet announced without trying to hide her surprise. ' He was off to Fort William this morning with a pretence of toothache, but it seems the laird's had a word with him.

He'll see to the fires and the odds and ends about the house till you can get somebody else.' From Edinburgh, she meant. 'Has Duncan got another job?' Catherine asked. Janet took off her coat, smoothing down the apron she wore beneath it. 'There's the fishing,' she said carefully, ' and the extra work at the hotel in the season. And Miss Daviot can always do with a handyman over at Inverlarig.' These must be their nearest neighbours, Catherine supposed. 'How far is the hotel from Crane?' she asked. 'A goodly bit. Four or five miles on the other side of the clachan.' 'And Inverlarig?' 'Oh, that's right over the Pass into Glen Larig. It Used to be a lonely place, but now, with the pony- trekking in the summer and the skiing as soon as there's enough snow, it's a profitable business, they're telling me. Flora Daviot has made the most of it, anyway,' Janet concluded. ' We all thought she would marry the laird, but it didn't come off. She would have made him a good wife. Better than the other one -' She hurried away to attend to her fires, leaving Catherine poised on the edge of curiosity. The story of Crane was evidently more than a dwindling heritage, but she supposed she might never know the real truth about Iain Angus MacAllister of that ilk.

It was difficult to thrust the man completely out of her mind, however. Everything about Crane bore his signature, and there were the portraits looking down at her from the walls. In the full light of day she detected little differences about them which singled them out, but on the whole they might have been portraits of the same man done at varying stages of an adventurous lifetime. The first laird was so like the last that they could have passed for father and son. Curiously enough, there were no female portraits. The MacAllister women remained anonymous. Going from room to room in her search for the truth about Crane, she was aware of a certain shabbiness, but it blended in with the mellowed stone and high raftered ceilings and the heavily-carved furniture which had stood the test of time. Anything more modern would have looked completely out of place, but she couldn't help wondering what Mrs Harper would think of the castle and what effect it would have on a spoiled teenager like her daughter. What would Stacey Harper find to do in a place like Glen Fionn all the long winter through? Of course, there was Edinburgh. In a fast car they could reach the capital in a few hours when the roads were open. 'I think I must take a walk,' she told Janet when they had finished their midday meal. ' I feel I need to stretch my legs after all your good cooking!' Janet, who was busy cleaning silver, nodded in agreement. 'I wouldn't be going too far, though,' she warned. ' Not till you're sure of the glen. There's a nice walk along the loch and down to the clachan.'

Catherine was more ambitious, however. Having been virtually indoors for two days, she chose the upper reaches of the glen and was fascinated to discover that the Fionn River linked not two lochs, but three. They lay no more than a mile apart, bright blue jewels in their rugged setting of heather-clad hills with the great peaks of the Grampians rearing up above them. Drawn by the majesty and beauty of these guardian mountains, she walked on, scarcely aware of the fact that she had been climbing steadily since she had left the castle behind her. There was a fascination about these wild upper regions of Glen Fionn which drew her irresistibly, beckoning her on. At the end of that long, wet summer the burns were in spate and the rowans hung red and heavy on the boughs of the mountain ash. The sky above her head was blue and the hills as far as she could see were clear. She was still in among the trees, alder and thorn and birch following the rocky bed of the river until they gradually thinned out, leaving her only the hills. She could see for a great distance, right down the glen. She picked out Loch Fionn and the clachan and the winding ribbon of the main road and the castle standing in splendid isolation in its semicircle of pines. Nothing could have prepared her for the beauty and the loneliness of Crane, and suddenly she saw it reflected in a man's character. Born and bred here, how could Iain MacAllister be anything other than remote? His reserve was natural, a product of these lonely hills. Climbing higher still, she saw the Pass ahead of her and was tempted to reach it now that she had come so far. The rough, boulder-strewn road was hard under her feet, but it seemed imperative that she should see what lay on the far side of that dividing range of hills. The Pass itself was clearly defined and sheep grazed right up to the top, although there was no sign of a dwelling of any kind after Crane.

With her head down against the wind, she was still climbing when the rain came. It drifted down in a filmy veil, obscuring the distant peaks and finally the hills. The Pass and even the road ahead of her became vague, hidden behind it, as if nature had rung down the curtain on the first act of some obscure play. Now I've done it, she thought. Janet had warned her not to go too far until she knew the glen thoroughly, and here she was, on her first walk, completely and utterly trapped. Turning at once, she plunged back along the way she had come, following the river. In the sudden mist it seemed to mock her, laughing hollowly in its throat. Before she had reached the first lochan she was wet through, her stockings clinging to her legs, her hair plastered in a copper-coloured casque against her head. Rain trickled down her forehead and on to the nape of her neck, but worst of all her shoes were chafing. Soon a blister formed and it was agony to walk. Wondering if she dared sit down for a while in the hope that the rain would clear, she huddled in the shelter of some boulders, but they afforded her little respite from the swirling mist. It was cold, too, and her blistered heel made her feel miserable. Why had she come so far? Why had she chosen the lonely upper reaches of the glen when a safer, more clearly-defined path had stretched the other way? She could have walked for miles by the lochside without inconvenience or discomfort to herself, but she had chosen this difficult way to climb into the unknown hills. The thickening mist stole closer as she stumbled to her feet. It was foolish to sit still courting disaster from a chill, she reasoned, although to walk on could be dangerous, too.

There was very little sound now, and what she did hear began to baffle her. Sometimes the river seemed to be on her right, sometimes on her left, and she strayed off the path, again and again, sinking into sphagnum moss and wet peat bog almost up to her knees. Fear began to clutch at her throat, the fear of this vast silence and the unseen road. Twice she believed that she had stumbled off the main track on to the moor itself, but she couldn't be sure. There was a road of sorts disappearing into the greyness ahead. When a sheep coughed close beside her she almost screamed until she heard the distant barking of a dog. Somewhere, not too far away, there was human habitation—a dog, a house, a fire, perhaps. She had never wanted to see a fire as much as she did at that moment. Somewhere ahead of her the road must divide. She hadn't come to the second lochan yet, although in the blanket of mist which reduced distance to guesswork she felt that she should have passed it long ago. Suddenly the track she was following began to climb. It went away from the river, but the bleating of the sheep came nearer. She rounded a crag and saw the house less than a dozen yards away. It was built of grey stone so that it was little wonder she hadn't noticed it up here against the grey scree, but it suggested shelter and rest. The dog she had heard barking was nowhere to be seen. The whole place, in fact, appeared to be deserted. Thinking of nothing but shelter, her heel paining her more and more with every step she took, she approached the door. It was tightly closed. The house was larger than she had imagined, a low, stonebuilt lodge huddled on a grey ledge close in to the hillside, a grim eagle's aerie of a place poised in splendid isolation far above the glen.

When she tried the door it gave unexpectedly to her hand, yet there seemed to be no other human being within miles. 'Is there anyone there?' she called. Only the silence answered her. With an odd sense of intrusion she pulled the door shut again and hobbled round the gable end of the house to the back, where the same state of affairs prevailed. The door was unbolted, but the rooms beyond it were apparently uninhabited. Well, she decided, she couldn't wait for permission. She would go in and explain later, if somebody came. The back entrance gave on to a rough scullery where a meal had recently been prepared. Pots and dishes lay in the sink and adorned the table in the adjoining kitchen, but there was no fire, although the unmistakable fragrance of peat smoke hung in the air. Beyond the kitchen, through an open door, she glimpsed chintz- covered chairs and a vast stone fireplace, which probably formed part of the entrance hall. In its utter isolation the house seemed curiously like Crane when she had first seen it. It had been lived in, after a fashion. She sat down on a wooden chair to examine her heel. The blister was now the size of half-a-crown and looked ready to burst at any moment. Hobbling over to the sink, she wrung out her stockings, wondering what to do. The mist had cleared a little, giving place to a steady drizzle of rain. She was soaked through, so it didn't matter very much about the rain, but the prospect of walking all the way back to Crane made her flinch. 'Maybe you can tell me what you're doing here?'

Catherine looked up and round at the woman standing in the outer doorway. She had two buckets in her hands and had probably been out somewhere, feeding livestock, and she was wrapped in an old duffle coat which must have belonged to a very big man. The hood, drawn well down over her sharp, pointed face, gave her the disconcerting appearance of a witch, and her thin legs disappeared into a pair of mud-spattered Wellington boots. Catherine stumbled to her feet. 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. ' I had no idea there was anyone around. I did knock and—I wouldn't have come any farther than the kitchen. Please believe me.' 'The kitchen was far enough,' the old crone grumbled, setting down her pails. ' We don't expect intruders up here. You're a stranger.' She pulled back the hood to reveal a thin, weather-beaten face and sharply-penetrating eyes. ' What were you doing on the hill?' 'Walking,' Catherine explained. ' I had no idea it would start to rain like this—out of a clear sky. That mist was awful out there. I could hardly move in case I lost my footing.' The woman made no comment, going to the sink to rinse her pails. 'What's wrong with your heel?' she asked grudgingly. 'It's blistered.' Catherine looked down at it ruefully. ' I shouldn't have come so far.' The woman took off her coat to reveal a surprisingly clean apron, over which she tied another one made of rough sacking. 'I come in to clean up,' she explained almost aggressively. 'Twice a week. It's difficult for a man to manage, living on his own.'

She began to search in a drawer, bringing out a rough first-aid kit. 'You'll find a bandage in there,' she said, thrusting the lidless box into Catherine's hands. ' Where are you from?' 'Crane.' The impact the word made on the old woman was electrifying. 'Crane?' she repeated. 'You're one of them? You're one of the folk that's taken over the castle? Well, all I can say is that you'd better go. You'd better go straight away,' she added, ' before the master gets here.' Catherine gasped. Even in the shelter of the kitchen she could hear the rain pouring down now as if, once the mist had lifted, the very heavens had opened. 'But surely,' she protested, ' you can't mean to turn me out in this? I'm not asking you to make me anything to eat,' she added, glancing distastefully at the disorder in the sink, ' or even a cup of tea. All I want is shelter.' She peeled off the backing from a large plaster and applied it to her heel, watched by the sullen old woman, who seemed to be hovering over her to hurry her away. 'Now that the mist's lifted,' she said inexorably, 'you'll be off down the glen. You'll be finding no shelter up here. If the master comes back and sees you he won't be pleased.' Catherine struggled to her feet, pushing her wet stockings into the pocket of her sodden coat as angry frustration got the better of her. 'Your master must be some sort of ogre if he expects me to trudge off in tins!' she exclaimed. ' A—a monster, to say the least!'

'All right, Morag, I'll take care of this.' The man's voice had come from the inner doorway. He was standing between the hall and the kitchen, looking in at them. It was Iain MacAllister. For a moment Catherine couldn't think why he should be there, and then she understood. This was Dromore, the farm on the hill where he chose to live in isolation while he attempted to work out the salvation of Crane. No doubt it had been a comfortable hunting lodge at one time, but now it was simply somewhere to eat and sleep, a bleak mountain retreat devoid of the creature comforts he had come to scorn. 'I lost my way,' she explained half-apologetically. ' The mist came down when I was nearly at the head of the Pass. This isn't a social call.' His cold scrutiny took in her dishevelled appearance from the crown of her damp head to her sodden shoes. 'No,' he agreed, 'and I would hardly have expected it. We don't encourage visitors at Dromore.' Especially visitors from the castle, she supposed. He was bitter about Crane, having to rent his home to a stranger. She could understand that, but not the personal animosity. Perhaps he was determined that women should have no place in his life while he struggled to retain his heritage. It was a foolish, mistaken idea, but it was one that a man often cherished to bolster up his pride. She looked straight into his unsmiling eyes.

'Believe me, Mr MacAllister,' she said, ' I'm not here from choice. As soon as I can I'll go back down the glen, but I doubt if I could find my way in this rain any more than I could in the mist.' He agreed with her. 'The roads are like burns,' he admitted, ' and you did stray off the main hill road to get here. You're wet through into the bargain,' he added. ' When I've lit a fire you'd better try to dry yourself out a bit. Morag will make you some tea as soon as she gets the stove going.' He disdained fires in the early morning, apparently, and Morag obviously didn't put in an appearance until the afternoon. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement, but no doubt it was the best he could do. Dromore was well off the beaten track, even more isolated than Crane itself. 'You're very kind,' she murmured, following him into the hall. ' It was a pretty mad impulse that took me so far up the glen on my first walk, but I suppose I was led on by the sheer enchantment of it.' She didn't want him to think that it was curiosity that had brought her to Dromore, but while he bent to put a light to the fire she couldn't help looking about her. All the heavy oak doors leading from the hall were closed, but in itself it made a charming and probably a useful room. The big armchairs on either side of the fireplace were deep and comfortable looking and a chesterfield covered in rich, buttoned velvet occupied the centre of the floor. Odd tables littered with books and papers stood around, while a couple of fishing rods and a selection of salmon flies adorned the surface of an ancient chest. A man's room, with no pretensions to softer living. Goatskin rugs covered the parquet flooring, and a great pile of freshly-sawn logs had been stacked at the side of the stone hearth ready to be thrown on the fire when it needed replenishment.

It was surprising how quickly the logs caught and flared into life. 'Larch,' her reluctant host told her laconically. 'We've been felling all summer on the far side of the glen. The timber ought to bring in a reasonable return.' He could think of nothing but the repayment of Crane's debt, about his fight to save the estate. 'Will it take a long time?' she asked involuntarily. ' To—to put Crane on its feet again?' He smiled grimly. 'A good many things depend on circumstances,' he said. 'Fate, if you like. Crane will survive, with or without me.' He straightened to his full height, bracing himself subconsciously against the uncertainty of the future, his unsmiling mouth and set jaw underlying his determination to succeed at all costs. He had spoken of circumstances, recognizing that they were often stronger than the human will to. control them, although there hadn't been any hint of self-pity in his voice. 'You certainly are soaking,' he observed, taking her coat from her. ' A fancy thing like this is no protection in this sort of weather. You'd be better with an oilskin or a duffle coat if you mean to stay in the glen.' He didn't wait for her answer, so she couldn't accuse him of curiosity where she was concerned. He strode towards the door leading into the kitchen without removing his own coat. 'There's plenty of wood,' he pointed out, ' and Morag will bring you some peat later on. You'd better dry yourself out, if you can. This rain may go on for hours.'

Catherine drew in a swift breath, ready to protest her unwillingness to stay where she was so obviously unwelcome, but he had already gone. Glad of the fire, which was now burning steadily, she tried to dry her skirt, which was not too wet. She wrung out the hem and took off her shoes again, which was the greatest relief of all, although she had the sense not to put them too near the fire. Morag clattered away in the kitchen. There was no other sound. Iain MacAllister must have gone out. 'He's away to see to the beasts,' Morag told her when she came in with a cup of tea. ' There's aye danger when the burns are in spate.' She put the cup and saucer down grudgingly. 'You'll no' be staying long,' she observed, ' after the rain eases.' It was hardly a question and certainly not an invitation. It was more like an order, issued in the odd, blunt phraseology of the glen. Morag was almost aggressive in her desire to protect her master's privacy. Of course, she could have been briefed by MacAllister himself, but why? 'I've no desire to stay a moment longer than is necessary,' she told the ungracious old creature, ' but it really would be senseless to go out in this. I've never seen rain quite like it.' 'Senseless or no',' Morag informed her, ' you'll have to go. The master'll be back in a while for his meal and he likes it in peace.' In peace! Catherine couldn't help smiling at the oddly incongruous remark. 'In absolute isolation,' she murmured. ' Doesn't he ever entertain at all?'

It seemed unlikely, but she was scarcely prepared for the violence of Morag's retort. 'What would he want to entertain for in a place like this?' the old woman demanded. ' It takes him all his time to keep it going. Working night and day he is sometimes. It can't last. He thinks he can run Dromore without help even inside the house, but he'll have to come to his senses before the winter sets in. He'll never face the lambing up here on his own. It's a wife he's needing, but that's something he's turned his back on, too, since the accident.' For the second time in twenty-four hours Catherine had come up against the past. Janet had mentioned ' the other one' only the evening before, tight-lipped and unsmiling, when she had said that Flora Daviot would have made the laird a good wife, and now Morag, too, had acknowledged the nameless girl who was part of Iain MacAllister's past. Morag stooped to pick up her brogues. 'I'll stuff them with newspaper,' she offered unexpectedly. 'It's the only way to keep their shape. What you need up here is stout boots. Your heel looks sore,' she acknowledged. ' Maybe it'll teach you not to walk so far in future.' With this ungracious sally she departed, taking the new brogues with her. Catherine had thought them adequate enough when she had bought them back in Edinburgh, but she hadn't reckoned with a downpour in Glen Fionn. Shaking out her hair, she dried it at the fire, her bare toes curling into the goatskin rug. The hall had taken on a warmth and friendliness which she would not have credited half an hour ago, probably because of the crackling logs and the fact that she could still hear the

rain streaming down outside. It sounded as if a reservoir had burst somewhere in the hills and come gushing all round the house.' When she finally crossed to the window to look out she could see nothing but the steely curtain of rain drawn between her and the way back to the castle. For want of something to do she tidied up the hearth and straightened the rugs on the wood floor. A long time ago it had been polished with loving care to a mellow honey colour, and it still looked beautiful. She sorted out magazines and books, but had the sense not to interfere with the fishing tackle. Flies of every sort were arranged in neat rows along the top of the chest, their feathers curving over the vicious-looking hooks. Bait for the unsuspecting fish. No doubt Iain MacAllister lived on fish and game plus the eggs produced by a dozen or so hens. Selfsupporting, self-sufficient. She was thinking about him more than she should. Morag came to set her master's evening meal in the hall. She had a checked linen tablecloth under her arm and a fistful of cutlery. 'I suppose you'll have to have something to eat,' she remarked. ' The master didn't say so, but if you're still here when he comes back he'll be bound to ask you.' Anger stirred in Catherine for the first time. 'I don't intend to be here if I can possibly help it!' she exclaimed. ' I didn't wish to come, in the first place, and as soon as the rain slacks off I'll go.' 'Hoity-toity!' Morag sparred back. ' You can please yourself. Nobody asked you to come.'

And nobody would have done, Catherine reflected, if I hadn't found my own way. All the same, she was determined not to be disconcerted by an ill-mannered old woman. 'Let me do that,' she offered, holding out her hand for the tablecloth. ' It will let you get on with your other work.' Morag hesitated, looking on her offer with characteristic suspicion. 'You can set for two,' she conceded at last, ' and if you go before he gets home I can clear the extra things away.' The silver and glass she produced was beautiful and not at all incongruous once she had set it out neatly on the gate-legged table at the far end of the room. It was all monogrammed with a family crest, a double eagle between two small, intricately patterned flags. The motto on the scroll at the foot said simply: ' Lahore et honore.' With labour and honour! It was the MacAllister motto, and Iain Angus MacAllister was certainly living up to it. Catherine did her best with the table, finding napkins in the top drawer of the chest. They had been laundered some time ago and their folded edges were slightly soiled, but she turned them the other way and placed them deliberately on the two side plates. If she had to share a meal with her reluctant host this was going to be one evening when Iain MacAllister would dine with most of the refinements he had been used to. There were no flowers to grace her effort, of course. The whole house was devoid of any aid to gracious living, yet once the china was on the table its lovely old pattern lent colour enough. An hour had passed and she. was still alone. She piled more logs on the fire and tried some peat when Morag struggled in with something

like a fisherwoman's creel to deposit it on the far side of the hearth. The old woman eyed the table with disdain. <' Braw trappings never filled a man's belly,' she observed sourly. ' He'll want his bowl of mutton broth the same as he always does.' 'I'm sure he will, Morag.' Catherine suppressed a smile. ' Is he out on the hill?' 'Where else? He has to be his own shepherd most o' the time forbye being ghillie and gamekeeper and everything else.' She went off to the far end of the house, which was all on one level, but she was back again within a few minutes. 'I've brought your shoes,' she announced. ' The rain's slackening.' Catherine felt her coat. It was more or less dry. 'I'll get back before it's dark,' she agreed, keeping her rising annoyance in check as best she could. ' Mrs Sinclair will begin to worry if I don't. She warned me to keep to the main road.' 'Young folk never could abide advice,' Morag remarked. ' They fly in the opposite direction just to prove their wills.' 'Perhaps you'll explain to Mr MacAllister that I left as soon as the rain eased off,' Catherine said with as much dignity as she could muster. ' And—thank him for his hospitality.' Morag stood watching as she forced her feet into the damp brogues. It was an agony for Catherine to walk across the room, but she made it. 'I'll go out by the front way, if you don't mind,' she suggested, biting her lip against the pain. ' It will be shorter.'

Morag closed and barred the door behind her. The rain had eased a little and a watery sun was attempting to break through the clouds above the Pass. Catherine couldn't see the glen in its entirety, but she fancied that she detected the sheen of loch water far beneath her. It didn't really matter, of course, because there was only one path to Dromore which ended at the house. She could follow it to the fork she had missed on the way up and then it would be downhill beside the Fionn River all the way to Crane. All the way to the castle! It was more than four miles, she calculated, and after the first hundred yards she felt like collapsing on to the first available boulder and bursting into tears. Tears did indeed blind her as she limped on, angry tears at the treatment she had received up there in the lodge among the hills and tears of chagrin at her own stupidity in attempting such an ambitious walk on her very first day in the glen. Long before she had reached the fork in the road she knew herself defeated. She sank down on a ledge of rock overhanging the noisy river and took off her shoe. Why had she been such an imbecile as to wear a pair of practically new shoes for a long walk? But everything would have been all right, she reasoned, if it hadn't been for the rain. It was reduced to a little more than a drizzle now, falling gently on the moor and clinging to the rowans high above her head. The glen was beautiful, she acknowledged, even in her present predicament. Clenching her teeth, she thrust her foot back into her shoe and hobbled along the path. It was the collie who found her first. Liath came bounding down from the moor behind her, a flash of grey and black streaking among the clumps of spent heather to pull up abruptly just short of where

she had decided to sit down again. He looked surprised when he saw her and then he wagged his tail. 'Oh, Liath!' she greeted him, fondling the smooth, wet head. ' I have made a mess of things!' Liath's master was on the scene in less than two seconds. He appeared to take in her predicament at a glance. 'What in heaven's name, made you leave the house?' he rebuked her. ' You might have expected trouble with that heel of yours.' Catherine looked up at him, fighting back the tears and forcing herself to an angry retort. 'You couldn't possibly say I'd been made welcome up. there,' she accused him. ' It was too obvious that I was trespassing. You didn't have to say so, and your housekeeper made it abundantly clear.' 'Morag forgets her manners now and then.' He didn't attempt to excuse himself. ' Let me have a look at your foot. You can't walk back to the castle in this condition.' 'I can try,' she -contended foolishly. 'Don't be infantile.' He knelt down on the rock beside her. ' You're not likely to get your shoe on again now that you've taken it off.' He held her foot in a grasp that was infinitely gentle, examining the chafed flesh as if she had been an injured animal he had found among the heather. 'It's in pretty poor shape,' he decided. ' We'll have to get back to Dromore.'

'You don't have to help me at all,' she began, but he silenced her with a look. 'Let me be the best judge of that,' he said. 'You don't honestly think you could get back to Crane as things are?' 'No,' she was forced to admit, drawing a great breath of resignation. ' I suppose not.' He helped her to her feet, picking up the shepherd's crook which he had laid on the ledge beside him. 'Lean on my cromag,' he advised. ' I'll support you on your other side.' He put his arm about her and she felt it taut and hard across her back. The smell of his damp tweeds reminded her of the peat fire burning cheerfully at Dromore. 'You ought to be having your meal,' she said awkwardly. -''Morag was busy preparing it when I left.' 'It can wait.' He carried her the last half-dozen yards to the door. 'I wish this hadn't happened,' she told him quite truthfully. Morag, who had evidently seen their approach, pulled back the bolts and he pushed open the door. Without speaking he led her into the firelit hall, and suddenly she felt him stiffen as he glanced about him at the gracefully- appointed table and the tidied rugs and swept hearth; at the order she had created for his homecoming. The firelight flickered in his eyes for a moment before he said:

'The woman's touch? You've made it all look very much like home, Miss Roy, but it doesn't appeal to me.' His tone was bitter. ' I'm a working farmer. I have no time for the fripperies of life.' 'It would seem that you have plenty of time to be ungallant,' she accused him. 'It wasn't my intention.' His lips remained firmly compressed. ' Perhaps you let me see, only too clearly, what I am missing.' He led her to the comfort of the chesterfield. 'You imagine you're a law unto yourself,' Catherine said, ' but nobody is. Maybe you'll need someone one day and find it's too late.' He pulled forward an embroidered stool for her to rest her foot. 'I'll take my chance on that,' he said. ' At the moment I'm quite content as I am.' 'I can almost believe you,' she said, looking up into his dark, closed face. ' Yes, I really think it's true.' If he glanced about him once more at the comparative comfort she had conjured up for him out of indifferent confusion it must have been critically, because there was no sign of gratitude in his manner. His hard, set mouth reminded her of the portraits hanging on the walls at Crane and she asked almost eagerly: 'Is there any way of getting back to the castle short of walking?' He glanced at his watch. 'I can take you back in about an hour,' he promised. ' Flora should be back with the jeep by then.'

Flora Daviot! The girl he ' should have married' according to Janet. What was she like, and why had he passed Flora by for someone else? If she sought the answer in his stern expression she was doomed to disappointment. He brought fresh bandages and the first-aid box from the kitchen to dress her injured heel without offering her any further information about his expected visitor. When he had finished Morag brought in a great tureen of broth, re-setting the second place at the table with a grunt which emphasized her disapproval. Even her master couldn't fail to notice it. 'We'll manage, Morag, if you want to get off home,' he said. ' I'm sorry I kept you waiting.' 'It wasn't your fault,' the old woman excused him, ' and I'll wait and. finish my job. It won't be the first time I've walked back to the clachan in the moonlight.' 'I'll see you have a lift,' he promised. ' I'll be sending Miss Roy home in the jeep.' Morag looked completely satisfied. 'I don't suppose there's any way of getting word to the castle?' Catherine asked. 'Janet's bound to be getting anxious by now.' 'We're not on the telephone up here.' He rose to carry their empty plates into the kitchen to save the old woman's legs. ' Janet won't panic much before dark, and even then she'll wait for a while before she raises any sort of alarm.' Their second course was a rich mutton stew, with jacket potatoes heaped in another tureen. It was delicious. Morag was certainly an excellent cook.

'There's bannocks and cheese now,' she announced, setting down her tray on the end of the table. ' Nothing else.' When the table was cleared they sat in front of the fire, waiting until the jeep drove along the approach road and drew up in front of the house. Iain was at the door before Flora Daviot reached it, but he hadn't time to prepare her for a stranger. 'Anyone at home?' The fresh, lilting voice sounded through the open doorway. ' Sorry to be so late, Iain, but Callum didn't pick up the shelties till three o'clock. Time means nothing to him, as you know -' The remainder of her greeting was left suspended in mid-sentence' as she looked beyond Iain to the fire. 'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'I didn't realize you had company.' Her surprise seemed faintly tinged with resentment, although in the next instant she was shaking Catherine by the hand and saying she hoped she would be happy at Crane. 'I heard you were coming, of course—from Iain.' Her dark eyes met the laird's grey ones across the hearth with swift understanding in their depths. ' When did you arrive?' 'Just yesterday.' Catherine looked down at her bandaged foot. 'I'm doing very well, don't you think?' she added with a grimace. 'Crippling myself on my first walk!' 'How terribly unfortunate!' Flora's sympathy appeared to be quite genuine. ' Have you sprained your ankle?' 'It isn't quite so bad as that, although my attempt at first-aid might suggest it,' Iain said dryly. 'It's nothing more than a blistered heel,' Catherine explained hastily, ' but it is rather painful when I try to walk.'

'Nothing more so,' Flora agreed, running her fingers through her mass of windblown hair. ' Would you like me to run you back to Crane?' 'You could take Morag home while you're about it,' Iain suggested. ' She stayed late to feed us.' Flora's glance went to the ordered books and the carefully swept hearth. 'We're very spruce, this evening, Iain,' she commented. ' Everything in apple-pie order, in fact! I won't upset it by bringing the crates in this way. They can go round to the back.' Iain went off to unload the jeep and Flora made herself comfortable in one of the easy chairs. 'I come over occasionally to see that Iain doesn't go completely native,' she smiled. 'Morag attends to the inner man quite satisfactorily, but she really hasn't got a clue when it comes to homemaking. I spotted your handiwork the moment I came in.' She unbuttoned her sheepskin coat to reveal a pair of pale blue slacks under an apricot-coloured sweater. ' Are you going to like Glen Fionn, Miss Roy?' she asked. ' It can be lonely unless one has a large family or some other engrossing interest. Then it can be rather fun. We're still pony- trekking over at Inverlarig, but we'll soon be getting ready for Christmas and the first of the snow.' 'One is inclined to think in terms of nothing up here,' Catherine confessed. ' Or mainly the shooting and fishing, but I have heard that the skiing is fun.' 'It's tremendously well organized into the bargain.' Flora was short and dark and her conversation was very much to the point. ' We don't see any reason why Switzerland and Austria should have it all their own way when it comes to winter sports. My chief interest is with the

ponies, of course. Iain breeds some of them for me over here and hardens them off, but there's a great future in the snow. Glen Larig has the best slopes for beginners, but we really could come over the Pass if we had suitable accommodation on this side.' She sighed. ' It all takes money, of course, and already the combines are moving in. The Boys with Capital!' Something of a commotion was going on outside and presently several dogs came charging in from the kitchen. A cocker spaniel, two golden labradors and an Irish setter rushed through the hall, followed by Liath, who was completely breathless. 'Oh, my heavens, Iain!' Flora cried. ' These terrible dogs! Morag will be furious. Call Liath off and I'll get hold of Sandy. The others will do as they're told.' She made a dash for the spaniel. ' A phassain!' she cried. ' Just let me catch you and I'll change you into a rabbit!' Catherine dissolved into helpless laughter. The room was full of barking, leaping dogs, with Flora herself mixed up with them somewhere and expressing her wrath in her native Gaelic far more forcibly than she could ever have done in English. 'You'd better leave them here,' Iain advised her, ' now that they've done their worst. I'll put Liath in the shed till you get back.' The melee subsided and Flora surveyed the damage. 'Mostly mud,' she decided with relief. ' I know I shouldn't bring them,' she confessed, ' but they're so desperately eager to come.' She turned to Catherine. ' Perhaps we'd better be on our way,' she suggested. ' Iain's probably had enough of us!' They piled into the jeep, Catherine in front with Flora and Mrs McFee clutching a capacious marketing-basket on the back seat.

Flora looked up at the tall figure in the doorway. ' I'll expect a hot toddy when I get back, Iain,' she laughed. ' It's been a nasty day.' When Dromore had been safely left behind, she chattered pleasantly ail the way back to the castle. 'I had to borrow Iain's jeep yesterday when he got back from Edinburgh,' she explained. ' My car broke down and nobody in Glen Larig seemed to have one to spare. It's probably my driving that frightens them off,' she conceded. ' Even the minister wouldn't oblige.' She laughed infectiously. ' I'll walk home over the Pass if Iain will let me,' she added. ' The dogs love it and there's a full moon.' She had no fear of that lonely walk. Born and brought up in Badenoch, every inch of the way was familiar to her and the dogs would bear her company, yet it might well be that Iain MacAllister would insist on seeing her home. They turned in at the castle gateway. 'I hope Mrs Sinclair hasn't been too worried,' Catherine said. ' It's well after seven o'clock.' 'Janet will have heard the jeep by now.' Flora negotiated the final bend in the drive. ' My goodness!' she exclaimed, ' that's what I call a car!' A large grey limousine was parked fair and square in front of the castle doorway, and Warren Harper strode out from the lower hall to meet them. He was frowning. 'This is a nice how-d'ye-do, Cathie,' he began before she could say anything. ' Leaving everybody to wonder what in the dickens has happened to you! We were on the point of organizing a search. Janet

was right, though. She said somebody would bring you back. Where did you get to, for goodness' sakes?' His tone was more than a little possessive, his anxiety spiked with anger now. She should have been there, he considered, whether she had expected his arrival or not. Catherine got down from the jeep. 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. ' I had to be brought back. I walked too far and blistered my heel.' She turned to Flora. ' This is Mr Harper, my employer,' she introduced them. ' Miss Daviot.' Warren Harper looked slightly mollified. He took Flora's outstretched hand with a quick smile. 'You'll be a neighbour,' he suggested. ' It's good to know you.' 'I'm from Arduaine House—over the Pass into Glen Larig,' Flora explained. ' Miss Roy had to seek shelter at Dromore and I was returning Iain's jeep, so I offered to help.' 'Dromore?' Warren turned the word over in his mind. ' That's MacAllister's place, isn't it?' He turned back to Catherine. ' How come you managed to get that far?' he demanded. 'Probably my explorer's instinct was at work.' For some odd reason she wished that Flora hadn't mentioned Dromore. ' I simply went for a walk on a lovely autumn afternoon and got caught up in a Scotch mist. The mist to end all mists,' she added lightly. ' Then it turned to rain and I was caught in a deluge and found the only shelter for miles.' 'I see.' His fair brows were still drawn. 'You'd better let me help you.'

'It's nothing,' she tried to protest as he took her arm. ' Mr MacAllister tied it up as best he could. He seems to have used miles of bandages on a very small blister.' 'So you met MacAllister?' he mused. ' You certainly don't waste any time.' He nodded almost curtly in Flora's direction. ' Thanks for your help,' he said. ' When we're properly settled in maybe you would come and meet my family? They'll be glad of the company.' 'I'm hoping you'll come over to Inverlarig,' Flora said. ' I run a small guest-house in the glen and we do quite a lot of pony-trekking. If your sister is interested, die might like to take a pony out now and then. It keeps them in trim.' 'Stacey does a lot of riding back home,' Warren acknowledged, ' but her sights are on horses these days. She imagines she's outgrown the pony stage. All the same, I guess she'll be interested. Thank you for the offer, Miss Daviot. We'll be seeing you quite soon.' A vivid smile lit up Flora's small, dark face. 'I'll be looking forward to it,' she said. ' Beannachd leat.' 'I wonder what that meant,' Warren mused as the jeep drove off. 'It was probably Gaelic for something or other,' Catherine suggested with a smile. 'Blessing go with thee,' Janet translated at her elbow. ' Flora is the great Gaelic scholar and it's fond she is of everything Highland!' 'It's a lovely way of saying goodbye.' Catherine's eyes followed the jeep till it was out of sight. ' I think I'm going to like Flora Daviot very much.'

'And what have you been doing to your foot, Miss Roy?' Janet wanted to know. ' Is it an accident you've had?' 'I'm getting sympathy under false pretences,' Catherine smiled. ' It's only a blister, Janet.' Warren Harper helped her into the hall and up the flight of stone steps to the floor above. 'I'm sorry I nearly bit off your head just now, Cathie,' he apologized, 'but we were both worried. Mrs Sinclair didn't know where you had gone, and I never thought of searching right up to the Pass. I scoured the lochside pretty thoroughly, but, of course, there was no sign of you.' 'When did you get here?' Catherine asked, hoping to divert interest from her stupid adventure. ' I wouldn't have gone out if I had known you were coming.' He led her to one of the chairs beside the fire. 'We'll see to your foot first,' he said, but she shook her head. 'I think we ought to leave it as it is,' she suggested. ' It's really quite comfortable now, but I would like to have a wash and change my skirt. It still feels rather damp.' 'You make the decisions.' He stood with his back to the fire, looking down at her. 'I got through with what I had to do in Switzerland sooner than I expected,' he explained, ' so I flew back to Edinburgh,' 'I understood you were going to Norway.' She paused on her-way to the foot of the staircase. 'I am,'. he said. ' I'm due to fly out tomorrow morning, but I had all day today to cool my heels in Edinburgh. I'll have to push off again

as soon as Mrs Sinclair can get us a meal, but the garage people had produced my new car and I couldn't resist the run through. It's just as well I came via Edinburgh,' he added, ' for I've had a cable from home telling me my family lands at Prestwick on Monday. They're flying over from Montreal on an earlier flight. Stacey says she can't wait to see Crane!' A sudden feeling of panic stirred in Catherine's heart. 'Will you be back in time? To meet them at Prestwick, I mean?' she asked. 'I guess so.' He grinned at her. ' After all, there are twenty-four hours in a day! I'll have to telescope Norway and Sweden, if I can. The Swedish representative of Kruger's may come to Oslo to meet me. That would do the trick.' The busy world of international trade was new to Catherine, but he took it in his stride, thinking as little of flying all the way from Zurich for an hour or two at Crane as she would of changing trains at Perth. I'll get used to it, she thought, going quickly up the spiral staircase to her rooms in the turret, but she hoped that Warren would return from Norway in time to meet his mother and bring her to Crane. Somehow, that seemed important. 'A telegram came through for you while you were out,' Janet informed her as she came downstairs again. ' It was phoned through from the post-office. I wrote it on the pad,' she added, waiting expectantly as Catherine read the brief message. Regret must decline appointment as housekeeper. Hope you can manage—Edith Lindsey.

'She'll not be coming,' Janet mused. 'Will it be putting you in a pickle?' 'Not if you would stay, Janet.' Catherine could think of nothing more convenient. ' You told me this morning that your daughter was quite able to look after the baby herself.' 'She can,' Janet admitted, ' but it would rest with Mr Harper, wouldn't it?' 'He'll be delighted, Janet.' Catherine didn't try to hide her relief. ' You're so much part of the glen. You could keep me from making foolish mistakes.' 'I didn't keep you from going to Dromore,' Janet pointed out dryly. 'No.' In Janet's eyes Dromore had been a mistake, but she hadn't gone there wilfully. Maybe Janet had advised her to keep to the lochside because she knew how deeply Iain MacAllister resented them, how painful it would be to see strangers in his well-loved home. 'What did you think of the laird?' Warren asked, standing squarely on the laird's hearthstone. 'He didn't seem particularly friendly,' she was forced to admit. ' But we didn't meet under the best of circumstances. He appeared to resent me going to Dromore. He had been out on the hill all day and came back wet and tired. That might have accounted for it.' 'There's no need to be surly because you have to work for a living,' Warren pointed out a trifle aggressively. 'I'm paying him a good rent for this place. He needs the money, and he can't expect to order our lives to please himself or salvage his pride or whatever he's trying to

do. There ought to be a saying somewhere about pride and penury not going together.' 'There probably is.' Catherine poured out her tea. ' Yet I don't really think it's all pride that's making him live the life of a recluse up there at Dromore. There's something else.' 'Such as?' he prompted. 'I'm not sure.' She couldn't tell him about 'the other one', the girl Iain MacAllister had preferred to Flora. 'We don't really know these people yet. I don't think we can fully understand the tremendous bond that exists between them, the—sense of belonging.' He looked up at her with a faint smile. 'You're as bad as they are,' he challenged. 'You sound as if. MacAllister had enlisted your sympathies in no uncertain manner.' 'That's the very last thing he would try to do,' she declared with conviction. He came to sit beside her, stirring the sugar in his tea. 'My mother's going to like this,' he said, changing the subject abruptly. ' She'll inject some life into Crane. So will Stacey.' He laughed. ' I'm hoping you and Stacey are going to get on. The kid's been pestering me for a horse, but I think we'll argue her into one of Flora Daviot's ponies.' 'If they're Highland " shelties " they're far better for the glen roads,' Catherine assured him. ' Stacey would be safer on one of them.' 'How about you, Cathie?' he asked, using her Christian name with a warmth and familiarity which seemed natural to him. ' Do you ride a lot?'

'I've never tried, but I understand the shelties are patient creatures,' she smiled. ' You did say, though, that there would be plenty of office work to keep me busy.' 'Sure,' he said, ' I've got to earn my bread and butter—even on holiday. The trouble is with people like MacAllister they've never had to think of competition. Their job was there, waiting for them from one generation to the next.' 'It isn't now,' she reminded him with unexpected heat. ' Death duties can cripple an estate, and it isn't just a personal thing. It's a sort of trust, something they have to pass on.' 'Is MacAllister married?' he asked abruptly. 'No—I don't think so.' The hot colour of embarrassment flooded into her cheeks. ' I suppose I meant if he did marry he'd feel it was his duty to pass Crane on to his son free from debt.' 'These fellows don't marry locally,' he said. ' They look for money.' 'Perhaps—they have to,' she answered uncertainly.

CHAPTER IV Janet moved her belongings to Crane the following afternoon. They came up with the carrier, together with Catherine's trunk, and consisted of an old wooden ' kist', which Janet said her mother had used before her, and a leather Gladstone bag with a hand-woven travelling rug pushed through the straps. She had installed herself at the castle and was ready to meet any adverse criticism. 'I couldn't be letting you down,' she said to Catherine. ' And if I'm keeping the place as it should be I'm helping the laird, too.' Always the laird, Catherine thought. The MacAllister of Crane. His personality dominated the glen, yet for the next three days she might have been the only living soul between the castle and the head of the Pass. There wasn't even a sign of the jeep or Liath fleeting like a grey shadow among the heather. The hill looked bare and deserted, yet somehow she knew that Iain MacAllister was up there, working. 'We'll have to set off fine and early for the kirk,' Janet remarked on the Sunday morning. ' It's four miles to the other end of the loch.' 'Do we have to walk?' Catherine's heel was still tender. 'Not if you can ride a bike. There's an old one in the shed Duncan sometimes uses,' Janet explained. ' If you had taken it that first day you went gallivanting through the glen you would have had to keep to the lochside.' 'What about you?' Catherine asked, ignoring the sly reference to her visit to Dromore. ' You can't walk all that way, Janet.' 'I've done it for years,' Janet assured her. ' I'll leave ahead of you. We only have the one service. The minister comes over from Inverlarig for ten o'clock.'

Cycling down the glen, Catherine breathed in the pungent scent, of the pines, lifting her face to the gentle breeze that swept across the loch. It was a lovely morning, cool and fresh after the rain of the night before, and autumn had splashed all the colours of her artist's palette on loch and hill and tree. Copper and gold and blue stood out against the green and purple of the distant mountains as the Sun broke through the clouds. A morning to lift the responsive heart in a paean of joy. The wind rushed past her on her downward way and the loch was very still and very blue, reflecting the needle- straight pines in a dark border of glassy water along the shore. On a tiny curve of beach a heron stood in silent contemplation of the gently-stirring reeds and a rabbit scuttled quickly into the undergrowth. Before she reached the clachan she could see the procession to the church. The villagers walked in little groups of twos and threes, dressed in their Sunday best, to be joined by their kinsfolk from the outlying crofts. Many of the younger ones cycled, as Catherine was doing, and the odd jeep and estate car flashed past. The glen was busier than she had seen it since her arrival five days ago. The hurrying churchgoers regarded her with undisguised curiosity as she dismounted to wheel her bicycle up the last incline to the kirk itself, but nobody spoke to her. She looked round for Janet in vain. She hadn't passed her on the road, so no doubt there was a footpath through the policies which was shorter than the main highway. The tall steeple of the little church rose above the pines, grey and straight against the blue of the cloudless sky, the echo of its summoning bell mingling with the bleating of the sheep on the quiet hillsides. The sound of a Sabbath morning stilling the clamour of the busy week.

Subconsciously Catherine found herself looking for the Dromore jeep among the few vehicles parked on the gravelled entrance to the churchyard, but it was not there. It would be as easy, she supposed, for Iain MacAllister to drive across the Pass to Inverlarig later in the day. The minister stood at the door to greet his flock and Janet came hurrying to Catherine's side. 'Put your bike round the back,' she instructed. ' I'll wait for you inside.' Catherine wheeled the offending bicycle away to stack it with several others well out of sight. When she came back a jeep was pulling up outside the gates, but she couldn't stop to discover whether it was Iain MacAllister or not. Janet was beckoning her from the porch. The minister shook her by the hand, passing them on to the beadle with a few words of welcome. Janet dropped her contribution into the collection plate and led the way in. The church was almost full. There were still a few seats at the back, but Janet marched steadily after the beadle down the side aisle, where they were ushered into an imposing-looking pew. It was screened from its neighbours by an intricately-carved partition in keeping with the ancient tradition of isolation and privacy for the laird at worship, and the small wooden door was closed firmly behind them. The castle pew! Catherine bowed her head, wondering if Iain MacAllister would join them there, as he had every right to do. Minutes later she became aware of his tall, commanding figure in the church doorway. He was speaking with the beadle, who seemed to be in some confusion, and without turning their heads everybody in the

church seemed to be aware of him and fully conscious of the beadle's dilemma. The organ started to play and Catherine held her breath. What would he do, and what was he really thinking as he stood contemplating her and Janet in the family pew? His hesitation was no more than momentary, however. With a brief word to the agitated little man at his side, he took his place in the nearest vacant pew. The tiny church was too small for Catherine not to be vitally awareof him sitting there throughout the service, but he didn't turn his eyes in her direction even when the service was over. He was speaking with the minister when they filed out into the sunshine again and Janet crossed to shake his hand. Whatever she said to him made him smile. 'The day might tome, Janet,' he answered, ' when I'll have to take your advice.' He looked round directly into Catherine's apologetic eyes. ' Don't worry about the pew,' he said. ' I always have a feeling of claustrophobia when I have to sit there, and it really is the castle pew.' He hadn't wanted to share it with them. Everything pertaining to Crane had been passed on with the lease of the estate. 'I can sit anywhere,' she protested, as Janet moved on ahead of them. ' I'm not really one of the family and I don't really mind.' 'Your employer might,' he said tersely. ' How's the foot?' 'Much better, thanks. In a day or two I should be able to walk about again.'

'I've offered Janet a lift,' he said. 'There's room enough for three.' She felt strangely disappointed. 'I came over on an old bicycle,' she explained. 'The boneshaker!' he smiled. ' I had no idea it was still usable. It belonged to my mother. She cycled a great deal. Somehow, the bike never got thrown but. It was—el sort of symbol of her independence. She didn't ride a horse and when she wanted to get about the smaller glens the bike was easier than a car. I hope Duncan had the sense to check it over for you.' 'He was using it himself, so it would seem to be road- worthy enough.' Catherine was conscious of the covert glances of their fellow-worshippers as they filed down to the gates. ' Duncan didn't tell me it was your property.' He shrugged indifferently. 'It's part of the castle furnishings,' he said. ' It would hardly be useful at Dromore.' 'No.' She thought of the bare, isolated lodge high up under the ridge with its lack of amenities and the harsh old woman who supplied his meagre creature-comforts, and suddenly it seemed that he needn't have moved so far away. There were surely other houses less remote, less withdrawn, which could have served his purpose equally as well.. If he had to farm—and she understood that he had to—the lower end of the glen was surely more suitable. Janet had said, of course, that he wouldn't evict a tenant to accommodate himself, but the thought persisted that he had chosen Dromore for more than one reason.

He halted at the path round the end of the church. 'I'm glad you're giving Janet a lift back,' she said. ' It's a long way for her to walk.' 'She's done it all her life,' he answered. ' She tells me she has agreed to stay with you at Crane.' He made it sound like a concession and she flushed angrily. 'I wish everybody didn't have to treat us as if we were impostors,' she observed. ' Mr Harper needs a respite from his business commitments and I understand his family have been looking forward to coming to Scotland for some time.' 'Janet will help you to entertain them,' he said briefly. ' You couldn't have chosen a better person.' Which meant that he would continue to stand aloof. Angry frustration kept her silent as he moved away, and when she wheeled his mother's bicycle out through the churchyard gates he had already started the jeep. Janet waved to her as she set off down the incline, but Iain MacAllister sat with his hands gripping the wheel, looking after her until she disappeared from view. Two days later a telegraph message was phoned up from the postoffice. It announced the fact that Warren Harper and his family would arrive the following afternoon. 'We'll have to fly round like paper kites,' Janet decided, although they had worked hard for the past few days to make the castle look warm and inviting. ' The van comes up this afternoon so we'll be all right for groceries, and the butcher will be here in the morning. If you think of anything else we might need you could take a run into

Kingussie,' she added. ' It's Wednesday and there's always somebody going in from the Forestry. They'd give you a lift.' Catherine decided against going so far afield, however. She was learning to plan well within the glen's limitations. In so many ways they had everything they needed close at hand. By the following afternoon the upper hall had been transformed by her vivid flower arrangements. Roses still bloomed in profusion in the walled-in garden and the branches of the giant copper beeches behind the house hung down low enough for her to gather an armful of glowing leaves. From the path along the burnside she had collected blood-red rowans and lacy ferns, while Janet had found her a silver bowl to hold a mass of orange and yellow marigolds. The lovely old bowl and the vivid blooms stood reflected in the shining surface of a round mahogany table under the minstrels' gallery and Janet had polished all the brass and silver in sight. Everything gleamed a welcome as they waited for the first sound of the car turning in at the gates. Only the line of portraits on the walls bent darkly unfathomable eyes on the scene beneath. Catherine found herself looking up at the last of them, at the wellremembered eagle profile and the unsmiling mouth. It could have been Iain Angus MacAllister himself. 'They're here!' Janet called, trying to subdue her excitement. ' The car's turning the drive now.' Catherine didn't answer. It seemed that she had been waiting to meet Warren Harper's mother for a very long time. The car drew up on the gravel outside the open door and Janet moved down the few remaining steps to greet her employer. She looked as if she had been the custodian of the castle for a very long time. Her dignity and restraint was superb.

Not quite knowing what her own role should be, Catherine remained where she was, standing in the upper hall beside the low, round table Janet had set for tea. The glow from the peat fire picked out the copper in her hair and the little yellow flecks in her grey-green eyes. She looked lovelier than she knew. 'Here we are! Welcome to Crane, Mother.' She heard Warren Harper's voice from the doorway. ' In you go and make yourself at home. Oh, this is Janet— Mrs Sinclair. She's going to help you with the housekeeping.' Catherine moved to the head of the shallow stone steps, conscious of an electric silence in the hall below. Janet was standing gazing at a small, bird-like woman in a fur hat and a neat tweed suit. She was staring at her incredulously, but she was still first to speak. 'Libby McNair!' she exclaimed. ' Surely I'm losing the sight of my eyes. It can't be you!' 'It sure is!' The newcomer put her arms round Janet without further ado, hugging her enthusiastically. ' Janet! Janet Fordyce, by all that's wonderful!' she exclaimed in her turn. ' My! It must be all of thirty years, and I would have known you anywhere. Fancy you recognizing me, though. I'm as grey as an old weasel under all this fancy warpaint, but you're just the same!' 'Thirty years older,' Janet reminded her. 'And we've both married and brought up a family in the meantime,' she added. ' I've lived all my married life in the glen. The one who stayed and the one who went away!' 'Fine I remember how we used to say that,' Mrs Harper agreed. ' Wait till I tell Warren. He'll never believe it!'

She turned back to the car without noticing Catherine and a tall, leggy girl rushed in. She was so like Warren Harper that it could only be his sister. Stacey leapt up the steps separating the two halls, taking in everything in one sweeping glance. 'Mom!' she cried. ' Come up here quick. You'll never guess! -This is fabulous. A real castle, with armour an' swords an' everything. You'll never guess!' she repeated, her mane of fair hair swinging back from her piquant little face as she lifted it to the row of portraits on the walls. ' People everywhere, all in kilts. It'll slay you! It's just about the most fabulous place I've ever seen.' She paused for breath, seeming to notice Catherine for the first time. 'You must be Miss Roy—Catherine,' she said, holding out her hand. ' Warren's been telling us all about you.' Her frankly critical scrutiny omitted nothing. ' He says he would have been completely lost without your help because you're the sort of person people take to. That isn't all he said.' Her childish, high-pitched laugh echoed to the rafters, disturbing the peace along the ancient walls. ' But I won't embarrass you by telling you any more I' She flung a suede coat on to the nearest chair as she went towards the fire. 'Tea!' she exclaimed. ' I'm famished—I really am. But maybe I'd better clean up a bit first, huh? Where am I going to sleep? I hope it's in one of these funny little turret things up near the roof. I'd love it up there. It simply must be!' Catherine's natural reserve crumbled completely before this emphatic onslaught.

'I thought you might like a turret room,' she said. ' There are two. We'll be on the same floor, as a matter of fact, because I've got the other one.' 'Show me,' Stacey demanded. ' Mom's met someone she used to know down there and they'll go on talking for an age, and Warren's collecting our grips. He says we travel like the tinkers with everything we possess! But you can't come on a holiday for six months without a few trunks, can you?' 'Not very well.' Catherine hesitated. ' Perhaps I ought to wait and meet your mother.' 'Aw, Mom won't mind,' Stacey declared. 'She's real glad we're here, at last, all together again. She won't mind one bit what you do.' Perhaps not, Catherine thought, and Janet could show Mrs Harper to her room. Climbing the winding stone stairs behind Stacey, she listened to the younger girl's excited chatter. 'Gee, this is wonderful, isn't it? I've never been in a real castle before. We don't have them in Canada, and Warren promised us this one would be swell. It is swell,' she reflected. ' All these corridors and twisty stairs and spooky alcoves. Can't you just imagine a party here—loads and loads of people all playing "Chase" all over the place and the lights all lit and these old, grizzly faces staring down from the walls and nobody caring a thing?' Catherine drew a swift breath. 'They've been here a long time, Stacey,' she protested. ' They— belong here.'

'Sure they do,' Stacey agreed. ' But it was a long time ago, wasn't it? Maybe they had fun, too, dancing reels and things, with a piper to play for them.' 'Their own piper!' 'What was that you said?' Stacey was several stairs ahead. 'It was nothing.' They had come to the top storey and Stacey bounded along the corridor. ' You're right at the end,' Catherine called after her. ' I hope it's what you want.' 'Sure it is!' Nothing could stem Stacey's exuberance. ' In here, you mean?' She flung open the heavy door. ' Gee, this is fabulous! You couldn't have picked better.' She was across the room in a flash, trying the door that led out to the balcony. ' It's locked,' she said. 'What a frost! Somebody's gone off with the key.' Catherine bit her lip. 'Both balcony doors are kept locked,' she explained. 'Why?' Stacey turned to face her. 'Why can't I go out there?' 'The balconies are very high -' Stacey crossed the room. Suddenly she appeared far older than sheseemed at first sight. 'You're not telling me the truth,' she said coldly. ' There must be some other reason for keeping them shut. The key isn't even in the lock. It's been taken away. Why?' Catherine shook her head.

'Honestly, I don't know. It had something to do with the laird's family. There was some sort of accident, I believe.' 'When?' 'I've told you, Stacey, I don't know.' 'Do you mean to say you've never tried to find out?' Stacey's eyes were pin-pointed with curiosity. ' How long have you been here?' 'Just over a week.' 'And you haven't ferreted out the Secret of the Castle?' Stacey laughed. 'I'm not going to stay in a room with locked doors,' she declared defiantly. ' I'm sixteen—nearly seventeen. I'm old enough not to fall out of windows, or over balconies for that matter. Who is this laird, anyway? Does he really think he can still give orders when we've rented the place?' 'I don't think that was his idea,' Catherine tried to argue. ' The balcony might just be dangerous.' 'If it is, Warren can have it seen to,' Stacey said. ' The whole place is probably falling to pieces, but that makes it fun. Do we have a ghost?' Catherine was forced to smile. 'I haven't met one.' 'The laird,' Stacey mused. 'The laird who took away the keys. Where does he stay?' 'At Dromore.' Catherine felt as if she were trying to protect Iain MacAllister. ' It's quite a long way away.'

'Do you know him?' Stacey fired the question at her as she washed her hands. 'Not very well. We've met once or twice,' Catherine was forced to admit, ' but he isn't a very friendly person.' 'Unfriendly to us, do you mean?' 'Perhaps that's what I did mean,' Catherine admitted. ' Though maybe I shouldn't have said it. Don't you think we ought to go down to the others?' she added. ' Your mother will be wondering what's happened to us.' 'Mom won't, but Warren's sure to,' Stacey told her complacently. ' He thinks you're indispensable.' 'I'm sure he doesn't,' Catherine said, leading the way back along the corridor. ' He has a most efficient secretary in Montreal.' 'That's back home,' Stacey pointed out. 'Maisie Culter would be just lost in a place like this. Just lost!' She had a habit of repeating herself. ' Can you imagine? She hasn't lived outside a city in her life. She hasn't even been away from Montreal. That's why she wouldn't come this trip, I guess. She was scared— real scared of leaving home. Can you imagine?' She lingered behind on the second floor, peering into rooms and cupboards while Catherine went on down to the hall. Mrs Harper was just coming in. 'Hullo, there!' she greeted her, holding out a neat, gloved hand. ' I'm Elizabeth McNair Harper. You're Catherine Roy, I guess, and I'm glad to know you. Warren's sure lucky to have gotten you. You've been attending to far more than your duties as a stenographer, I hear.'

Underneath the strong Canadian accent the hint of her Highland origin still lingered, and since she and Janet had met and recognized each other it had deepened. 'I'm too full of surprises to say very much,' she declared, peeling off her gloves, ' and I'm simply dying for a cup of tea. Janet and I were at school together,' she added. ' Isn't that wonderful? Meeting after all these years! Warren will hardly believe it's true, but Janet married and came here to live when the Forestry camp was set up, and after the war, when they began to re-plant the trees, her husband stayed on and her daughter married a Forestry man. We're both of us from Fort William and we understand the glens, though maybe I've been away from them for too long ever to settle.' That was what Warren Harper wanted, Catherine thought. To establish his mother at Crane, to give her the best of a way of life she had long remembered in the distant land of their adoption. 'The heart never really forgets,' Mrs Harper sighed. Then she laughed. ' Libby! I haven't been called that for years, but out it came as soon as Janet saw me! It was what I was called at school. Thirty years! Dear me, it's a lifetime, isn't it?' She deposited gloves, handbag and coat on different chairs, looking about her with the keenest interest. 'Warren wants to buy this place,' she said, holding her shapely hands out to the peat glow. 'He's always said we would come back to Scotland to settle, but I know it was to please me. It doesn't matter where we live now, I reckon—here or in Canada. The supersonic jet has reduced the world to a very small place indeed. Do you know, it took us only fourteen hours to get here and I slept most of the time!'

Warren came in, followed by Duncan. 'When you've seen your room we'll get all this cargo up there,' he smiled. 'Tea first,' his mother decided. ' Where's Stacey gone? She shot out of the car like a rocket. She's been terribly excited for weeks, thinking about the journey, but -' She hesitated. ' Well, I'm wondering if it isn't going to be too quiet for her here.' 'If I know Stacey she'll find plenty to do,' Warren answered. ' How have things gone, Cathie?' he asked. ' Have you been bearding any more lions in their dens while I've been away?' Catherine shook her head. 'There's only one lion, isn't there?' she smiled. ' I've met him at church, but that's all.' 'What sort of lion?' Stacey wanted to know, leaning over the balustrade of the minstrels' gallery. 'Cathie means the laird, I've no doubt,' Warren said. ' Come down and have some tea.' Janet came from the kitchen with the tea tray, placing it on the side table by Mrs Harper's elbow. 'Now, Janet, just you be mother for this once,' her old friend suggested. ' I'm too lazy and comfortable to pour out.' She stretched her slim feet in their narrow, fashionable shoes towards the fire. 'This is perfect!' she declared. Catherine found a chair a little way back from the hearth, unconsciously studying the new family at Crane and wondering what it had been like not so long ago when the MacAllisters had gathered

round their own fireside. She could imagine Iain in the chair Warren now occupied, his long legs spreadeagled, while Mrs MacAllister poured tea and the old laird grappled with the affairs of the estate. Crane had prospered then; they had been comfortable if not well off. 'Tomorrow,' Stacey said, ' I'm going to explore. I'm going right up over these hills back there to see what's on the other side.' 'Better let Cathie take you, in that case,' her brother warned. ' At least till you know your way about.' 'I can learn,' Stacey answered a trifle defiantly. ' You promised me a horse to ride straight away,' she reminded him. ' Have you fixed one?' 'Not so far.' Warren flashed a reassuring glance in his mother's direction. ' There's plenty of time, Stacey.' 'You could be getting her a sheltie over at Inverlarig,' Janet suggested. ' Miss Daviot keeps them for the trekking, but it's mostly past now..' 'Shelties?' Stacey queried. 'I've never heard of them.' 'They're a shaggy kind of mountain pony,' Janet explained. ' Your mother will tell you how suitable they are for this kind of country.' Stacey looked insulted. 'I rode a pony when I was four,' she pointed out. 'Not a sheltie,' Janet said. ' They're big enough. They have to be sturdy and strong for the hill work. Very few people use horses around here. The laird has one up at Dromore, but he seldom has time to ride it these days.'

'That would do,' Stacey decided. 'I'll go to— Dromore, is it?—and ask him to hire it out to me.' Janet said: ' He wouldn't,' almost too quickly. 'Why not?' Stacey wanted to know. 'If he can't exercise it himself he'd be pleased for me to take it out, I guess.' 'Miss Flora Daviot gives it all the exercise it needs,' Janet informed her dryly. ' She buys some of her ponies from the laird. They've always been bred at Dromore.' 'I can try for the horse,' Stacey murmured beneath her breath. ' Ponies are for kids.' Janet lifted the tea tray, her lips tightly compressed. 'I wouldn't be wasting my time, if I were you,' she advised. 'Iain MacAllister's horse has a bad reputation. It's said to have a vicious temper and very nasty ways. It knows only one master, you see.' Stacey made a bound for the stairs. 'There's too much talk about the laird around here,' she said. 'You make him sound like a demi-god or, something. What is he, anyway? A superman?' 'Something like that,' her brother agreed with a laugh. ' He owns all this, you see, Stace, and he can't forget it. For hundreds of years the MacAllister word has been law around these parts, so you'd better watch your step!' His sister made a face at him as she reached the half- landing.

'I'm not afraid of a moth-eaten old laird,' she declared. ' I'll soon get round him.' As she disappeared from view her mother shook her head. 'Sometimes I don't know what to do with that child of mine,' she remarked, looking across the hearth into Catherine's distressed eyes. ' I wonder why I've spoiled her. Maybe it was because I wanted her to have all the things I missed as a girl—the pretty clothes and the happiness and the fun. You can be foolish like that, and sometimes you wonder if it pays off.' 'Stacey's young,' Catherine answered with a strange twinge of misgiving. ' She wants her freedom, but I don't think she would do anything to hurt you.' 'I tell myself not,' Elizabeth Harper agreed, ' but youth is so careless. It plunges in where angels fear to tread. Stacey's always been a plunger. She never waits to reason things out. That way she gets into so many scrapes.' 'You can rely on Cathie to keep an eye on her.' Warren laid a reassuring hand on his mother's shoulder. ' She's got a head for sticky situations.' He could say that, Catherine thought, yet he hadn't really trusted her at Dromore. He had been angry when she had returned to the castle in Iain MacAllister's jeep, although it had been Flora who had been driving it.

CHAPTER V It took the Harpers three days to settle in. The luggage they had brought with them was supplemented by two huge packing cases which had been sent on ahead by air freight. They came up with the carrier, adding to the existing confusion in the lower hall, but very soon Duncan and Janet between them had most of the litter cleared away. Stacey contented herself with the castle and its immediate grounds, while Catherine worked solidly on the backlog of work her employer had accumulated during his visit to the Continent. She typed in a small study on the first floor facing out towards the hills. It was a light, compact room, lined with books, and while she worked at a table beside the windows Warren ruled his timber empire from the desk in the centre of the floor. 'What's the betting this thing has a secret drawer?' he grinned once as he put some papers away. ' It's old enough, goodness knows! You know the sort of thing I mean? You press a piece of moulding or something and heigh presto! the drawer slides out before your very eyes.' 'You've got too vivid an imagination,' Catherine smiled, turning round in her chair. ' You're like Stacey in that respect, yet -' He looked up at her. 'Yet?' he prompted. 'You've a hard head on you, as Janet would say.' He got up and came round to her side. 'What would you say, Cathie?' he asked gently. ' Your own, honest opinion.'

She flushed at the direct question, not quite sure where it was leading. 'I would say you were—tremendously kind and thoughtful,' she answered unsteadily. 'You—wouldn't let anyone down. Coming here,' she rushed on, ' has been something of an effort for you, a sacrifice, if you like. You're the complete business man and you don't like to be out of the swim. Even a little way out,' she added. 'You read me like a book,' he told her with mock solemnity. ' But honestly, Cathie, I had to do this. My mother went to Canada and slaved with her man to make a home there, and just as they were in sight of success—when the saw-mill he had started was beginning to pay its way—he died. She was twenty-eight when it happened, with a young child at her feet. I was ten years old, but she struggled on, building up the business while she educated Stacey and me. She made Harper's what it is today and she's deeply respected wherever she goes. I didn't realize it while it was happening, but now I know what she did, the courage and the determination and the solid footslogging, to say nothing of the sacrifices. She wanted Harper's for me and she kept it in the face of ruthless opposition.' He drew in a deep breath, gazing out through the window towards the hills. ' That's why I'm determined to give her something in return. She never stopped talking of Scotland and I vowed that, one day, I would bring her back.' 'And Crane was the answer,' Catherine said slowly. ' Was there nowhere else?' He looked puzzled for a moment. 'It was advertised,' he said. 'I'm not taking anything from MacAllister that he wasn't willing to trade for the price he asked. The trouble with these fellows is that they want to keep their pride and everything else into the bargain.'

'You're proud of Harper's,' she reminded him quietly. 'Sure I'm proud of Harper's,' he agreed. ' I've worked like a Trojan for it ever since I left college. I'm twenty-six years of age and I've never taken a real holiday. Sure I've been round the world, but it's been on business, working for Harper's all the time. Contracts, mergers, packaged timber—my mind's full of them. I've never had the time to think of anything else —till now.' 'And yet you won't stay,' Catherine said. ' Not all the time. You can't really relax.' 'I might, later in the year.' He glanced at his watch. ' I promised Stacey to take her over to Glen Larig,' he said. ' Why don't we all go? Mother and Janet can have a good old gossip while we're out of the way.' Catherine glanced at the dwindling pile of letters beside her machine. 'I'd like to,' she said. ' I've never been to Inverlarig. It's rather a rough journey across the Pass,' she warned. ' Will it be all right for your car?' 'It climbs mountains!' he grinned. ' Tell Stacey to be ready to leave at two o'clock.' It was an ideal day for a drive through the hills. The clouds were high, drifting like white-sailed galleons on an untroubled blue sea, and the road beside the Fionn river was hard and dry. The big, powerful car took the ruts in its stride, climbing steadily to the moor. They stopped at the tree line to admire the view down the glen. Loch Fionn lay far beneath them, with the two smaller lochans strung like blue beads on the silver chain of the burn that linked them, and in among the pines they could see the castle standing on its terrace of

bright green turf. It was familiar now and becoming dearly beloved, Catherine thought. 'Look!' Stacey pointed up towards the Pass. ' There's a house over there, just under that ridge.' It was Dromore. Catherine's heartbeats quickened. 'We don't go that way,' Warren said quite sharply. 'We go over the Pass. Stacey's eyes narrowed. 'There's someone up there—on a horse,' she said. ' A man on a horse. He's riding this way.' Horse and rider appeared to come straight towards them and then, suddenly, they veered away, but even at that distance Catherine had recognized Iain MacAllister. The big, powerful animal he rode breasted the hill and disappeared. It seemed that he had avoided them deliberately. When they reached the head of the Pass the view down into Glen Larig was breathtaking. High on each flank, the hills shouldered great bens and blue mountain peaks as far as the eye could see, and the air was full of the sound of rushing water. They saw the falls when they reached the first bend in the road, a great white leaping cataract of plunging water surging between two giant rocks to tumble forty feet or more to the river bed among the trees. The road went down in a series of hairpin bends, dropping to the shining loch far below. 'It's not so wild as Loch Fionn,' Catherine found herself saying. ' Not quite so remote, but it's lovely, too.'

'There's far more life,' Stacey decided. ' Much more to do, I should think.' 'It's skiing country in the winter, I believe,' Catherine said. ' Look, isn't that a ski-lift over there and some kind of hostel?' They asked for Miss Daviot at the village store. 'You'll have to go on down the glen a bit,' they were told. ' You'll follow the river till you come to some gates. That's the Forestry. Then you'll go on a mile to the beginning of the loch and Arduaine House is in among the trees there. You can't miss it. It has a board up. Miss Daviot takes in the trekkers.' Flora Daviot had made a business of pony-trekking. They realized that long before they reached the house. 'Are these shelties?' Stacey wanted to know when they came across a field of grazing ponies. ' They're tough-looking, but I guess they're mighty slow.' 'Your passion for speed will be your downfall one of these days,' her brother warned. ' The tempo of life is slower around here, Stace. You'll have to learn.' He turned the car in between the open gates as a couple of dogs rushed towards them. 'Down, Sandy! Down, you silly creatures!' The car was forced to a standstill and Flora Daviot came towards them. She was leading two ponies and two other dogs barked at her heels. ' Can I help you?' she asked almost before she recognized them. 'We're looking for a horse, like that one Over there.' Stacey spoke up before either Warren or Catherine could get a word in. ' The one in your paddock.'

Flora shook her head, acknowledging Catherine with a brief smile. 'It isn't mine,' she explained. ' A friend has just called.' She turned back to Stacey. ' But if you want something to ride wouldn't you consider a pony? They're the right sort of mount for the glens,' she added persuasively. Stacey's covetous eyes were still trained on the animal in the field behind her. 'It's the horse we saw in Glen Fionn,' she said. ' I'm sure it is.' Flora drew back, her cheeks flushed a little, her eyes not quite so friendly. 'If you came across the Pass it will be the same horse,' she agreed, ' but it's still not for hire. It's privately owned.' 'By the laird,' Stacey suggested before Catherine could stop her. 'All right, Stace, 'this is something you can't have,' Warren said. ' Do you mind if we have a look at your ponies, Miss Daviot?' he asked. 'I'd like something for my sister to ride.' Flora opened a gate and led the two ponies into a field. 'You're quite at liberty to look them over,' she said. ' I hire them out by the week or fortnight usually, but the season is more or less over.' 'We'd want it for longer than that.' Warren got out from behind the wheel. ' How about you, Cathie?' he asked. ' Come and choose.' Flora seemed anxious to finish their business and get away, which was only natural since, apparently, Iain MacAllister was waiting for her up at the house.

Stacey selected a pony at random, still with an envious eye on the horse in the next field. 'Can they gallop?' she asked doubtfully. 'They're trained to be fairly docile,' Flora smiled. ' They have to be safe, you know.' Warren selected Catherine's mount. 'This fellow looks about your measure,' he decided. ' How will we pick them up?' Flora hesitated, glancing towards the house. 'I'll have them ready in the morning,' she said. ' I can ride one over and lead the other.' 'Let's meet halfway,' Stacey suggested, her eager hands already on the rein. ' Cathie and I could walk up the glen towards the Pass. How would you get back?' she asked as an afterthought. 'I've a pony to pick up at Dromore,' Flora admitted rather stiffly. ' He's been off colour lately and Mr MacAllister rests them for me.' 'The laird,' Stacey said again. ' He does just about everything around here, doesn't he? Why couldn't I pick up the pony from Dromore on our way back, then I could ride over here and lead Cathie's tomorrow? It would save you a lot of time.' Flora's pleasant mouth tightened. 'I'm afraid that wouldn't do,' she said. ' I like to make sure about an animal that's been on the sick list before I hire it out again.'

'Leave it, Stace,' Warren suggested. ' Miss Daviot will bring both ponies over the Pass tomorrow and you and Cathie can walk up to meet her.' It was the logical solution, Catherine supposed, but as she walked up the glen with Stacey the following morning she found herself wishing that they had agreed to let Flora deliver their mounts direct to Crane. They were early for their rendezvous. Stacey had been impatient to start from soon after breakfast and now, at ten o'clock, she was walking very fast, as if she had some urgent prearranged plan in view. They had reached the path branching off to Dromore before Catherine fully realized what it was. 'Stacey,' she pleaded, halting on the bridge that spanned the noisy burn, ' we can't go to Dromore, if that's what you're thinking about.' Stacey came back to stand beside her. 'Why not?' Her lips were curved in a guileless smile.. 'Why shouldn't we go visiting? Iain MacAllister's our neighbour, isn't he? Our nearest neighbour.' 'You don't understand -' 'Oh, yes, I do.' Stacey set off at a brisk pace, flinging the words back over her shoulder. ' I understand that you've all got a thing about the laird. If it's not awe, like Janet feels, it's a guilt complex like Mother has every time she thinks of us being at the castle and him up here. Or resentment,' she added, 'which is what Warren feels. I don't know about you, Cathie—why you want us not to go—but it's pretty plain that Flora Daviot's in love with him. She didn't want us to meet him

yesterday at Arduaine House, so I'm going to Dromore. When I want something badly enough I know how to get it.' 'It's the horse, isn't it?' Catherine guessed. ' You're not going to be put off with a pony.' 'I'm not going to be put off with second best, ever,' Stacey said. ' Are you coming to Dromore or are you not?' It was useless trying to reason with anyone like Stacey, Catherine 'realized. She was wilful and hotheaded, and she always got what she wanted. But would she this time? 'You're lagging,' Stacey called back at her. ' Do you know if there's a dog around?' 'You're surely not afraid of dogs?' 'Not really, but they do have a way of rushing at you. How far is it?' 'About a mile.' The long slate roof of Dromore was just visible above the scree, nestling close in against the ridge. 'I wish you would turn back,' Catherine protested. ' There's no point in all this. It's going to look like curiosity—prying, in fact.' Stacey laughed. 'What has he got to hide? I'm beginning to be terribly curious about Mr Iain MacAllister, and it's mainly your fault. Everybody shrouds him in mystery, but you try to protect him.' 'It isn't that at all, but we are butting in where we haven't been asked.'

'Don't be so conventional!' Stacey grinned. ' We can always say we came to ask about the sick pony.' 'He'll see through that in a minute. You don't honestly think he would hire out his own horse?' 'We'll try him and see, shall we?' Stacey favoured her with a dazzling smile. 'I've got very long legs,' she pointed out. ' They would touch the ground on one of these wretched shelties.' As it had done on her previous visit, Dromore looked completely deserted. It was eleven o'clock and the sun was well up above the hills, but there was no sign of smoke issuing from any of the chimneys. 'What do we do now?' Stacey asked. 'Go back.' A flood of relief rushed over Catherine as they waited for some response to their knocking. ' There's nobody here. You're wasting your time, Stacey.' 'I'll take a look round the back,' Stacey decided. ' Just to make sure.' An enquiring whinny greeted their approach across the stableyard. 'The horse!' Stacey exclaimed. ' It's in there.' Unerringly she selected the correct loose-box, sliding back the bolt on the half-door to look inside. 'Hullo, Beauty!' she crooned. The horse gave an angry snort, champing in a sudden flare of temper. 'Look out, Stacey -!'

Catherine's warning came too late. Stacey had put out her hand and the animal's teeth met on the fleshy part of her arm. 'Oh, you brute! You savage brute!' Stacey wailed, clutching her jacket sleeve. ' You've bitten me!' 'Can you wonder?' The man's voice was deep with passion. ' Has no one warned you that you shouldn't approach a strange horse with all that gusto and expect him to understand that you don't mean him any harm?' 'No harm? He's bitten me,' Stacey cried, thrusting out her arm. ' If I hadn't been wearing a suede jacket heaven knows what harm he would have done!' Iain MacAllister managed to keep his temper. 'I don't know why you've come here,' he said, including Catherine in his fiery glance, ' but you'd better let me have a look at your arm. I hope he hasn't broken the skin.' Stacey looked very white. She had suffered a nasty shock and on top of it her pride was hurt. For a moment she looked as if she might refuse the laird's offer, and then she submitted her arm for his inspection. 'You'd better come inside,' he said briefly. Stacey followed him to the back door. Come with me, Cathie,' she commanded. ' I'd like a drink of water.' They went in through the scullery to the kitchen where the remains of the peat lay dead in yesterday's fire, but this time the dishes had been cleared from the table and rinsed through. They were stacked

systematically on a wooden dryer on the draining-board and all the pots were scoured. 'Do we go inhere?' Stacey pushed her way through to the hall. ' Oh!' she exclaimed, ' it's rather nice, isn't it?' Iain held the door for Catherine. He was still unsmiling, unwelcoming. The room was almost as she had left it. The suggestion of chaos had gone, although there were still piles of magazines on the floor. He crossed to the window, pulling back the heavy velvet curtains to let in more light. 'I'll take a look at your arm,' he said to Stacey. Catherine stood waiting just inside the door, conscious of his anger at their intrusion, although he could not very well have allowed Stacey to go untended. He pushed up her sleeve. 'There's nothing,' he said with relief, surveying the red marks on her forearm. ' The skin isn't broken. You may be bruised in the morning -' 'But that ought to teach me a lesson,' Stacey finished for him. 'I hope it will,' he said. ' And now, if you'll both excuse me, I have to get back to the hill. I have work to do.' Catherine found her voice; 'We can go out this way, Stacey.' She moved towards the front door. ' We mustn't keep Mr MacAllister waiting.' 'I still need a drink,' Stacey insisted, ' but I can get it for myself.'

She darted into the kitchen, and Catherine looked apologetically at Iain. 'I'm sorry this had to happen,' she said,' but one can't argue with Stacey.' 'Why are you apologizing?' Stacey had come back and was standing in the doorway between the two rooms with a cup of water in her hand. ' You needn't bother to excuse me, Cathie. I don't see why we shouldn't have come. After all, Dromore is part of Crane, isn't it?' Iain fixed her with a steady look. 'No,' he said slowly. ' And it never will be. This is a working farm, Miss Harper. There's nothing here to amuse you.' He unbolted the front door, holding it open to show them out, and Catherine almost ran over the step into the sunshine. 'Stacey, how could you?' she gasped when they were far enough away from the house. ' It was a terrible intrusion.' 'Why do you think he wants to live like a hermit?' Stacey had no thought of apology. ' He's presentable —almost too good-looking— and he can't have to work as hard as he makes out.' 'Don't let's talk about it,' Catherine said. ' What we did was unpardonable.' Stacey shrugged. 'You're full of sympathy for him.' 'And sympathy's about the last thing he wants.' Catherine had spoken almost to herself.

'Perhaps you're right,' Stacey conceded. They met Flora Daviot on the steep incline leading up to the Pass. 'You've beaten me to it,' she smiled. ' I had one or two chores to attend to before I could leave. I hope I haven't made you walk too far.' 'We gave ourselves an extra trek,' Stacey admitted. ' We went up to Dromore to see Mr MacAllister's horse. It's a fierce brute, isn't it? I tried to be friendly and got a vicious nip for my pains.' Flora looked quickly from one of them to the other. 'Was Iain there?' she asked. 'Yes.' Stacey fondled her pony's shaggy neck. ' Our overtures of friendship were nipped in the bud. The laird doesn't like us.' 'You mustn't judge Iain too harshly,' Flora said with- a small, indulgent smile. ' He's never been the type to rush into a friendship, yet to the right people he can be the staunchest of friends.' 'You've known him longer than we have, so you're probably right,' Stacey conceded. ' Maybe he won't be so surly after we've been here a while.' A shadow parsed in Flora's eyes. 'It's dangerous to judge without knowing all the facts,' she said more gently. ' I hope you're going to be happy with the ponies, Miss Harper. They're quite spirited, really. You can make them do anything you want if you're an experienced rider, but they'll be as docile as lambs when there's a child in the saddle. Let me know if you have any difficulty. You'll be welcome at Arduaine House any

time you like to come,' she added, including Catherine in her sudden smile. 'And I hope you'll come to Crane,' Stacey said impulsively. ' We want to get to know people. I'm going to be seventeen quite soon and Mom's promised me a house-party. It would be nice to have the locals, too, I guess.' 'We're few and far between,' Flora laughed, ' but we do travel miles for a party. We think nothing of it. The ceilidh season will be starting shortly now that the winter is almost here, and we're always looking for fresh talent. If you can sing or play an instrument or just dance you'll be in great demand! Even if you can just manage to join in the chorus you're made welcome. We sing folk-songs, mostly; sometimes in the Gaelic, but I think you'll enjoy them.' 'It sounds like a hoot'nanny show!' Stacey grinned. ' They're the rage back home. Warren's good on a guitar.' It was a side to her employer that Catherine would never have guessed. All his time appeared to be taken up by big business and the furthering of his timber empire, yet she supposed he had to relax some time and challenged him with it when they returned to Crane. 'Stacey talks too much,' he said sheepishly. ' I strum around occasionally. We used to go to the mountains at weekends quite a lot. When you mix business with pleasure a fishing lodge is as good a place to do it as anywhere. But I don't carry the thing around with me. It's back home in Montreal.' 'It was just a thought,' Catherine said. ' During the bad weather I suppose we'll have to make our own amusements up here, and the ceilidhs are very popular.'

'You needn't worry about being lonely,' he said. ' There's Edinburgh and Inverness practically on our doorstep. Stacey's been worrying Mother about a party. She thinks she should have it for her birthday.' He came to stand beside her. ' I'll have to leave you with most of the arrangements, Cathie,' he added. ' You and Mom.' He smiled as if the idea pleased him. 'Your mother said something about a family she had met on the plane coming over,' Catherine remembered. ' They're touring Scotland and she invited them to stay. Maybe we could have Stacey's party then, if it linked up with her birthday.' 'Make it link up,' he said, moving restlessly across the room. ' What's happening to me, do you think, that I'm not so keen on parties as I used to be? Stacey ought to be content in a place like this. It's ideal.' She looked up from her typewriter. 'Would you settle?' she asked. He laughed abruptly. 'What put that idea into your head?' he asked. ' Canada's my home. It's Mom I have to settle here— and Stacey, for a while till she decides to get married. Stacey's the unpredictable quantity, I guess.' 'Perhaps you're right.' He gave her a long, searching scrutiny. 'You're sold on Crane, aren't you?' he suggested. ' You're the sort of person who could live in a place like this quite happily for the rest of your life.' Catherine looked through the window to the nearer hills.

'If I belonged here,' she said, ' I could.' 'Maybe that's it.' He thumbed through the papers on his desk. ' Belonging. That's what I want for this family of mine—a place that means something. My mother's not a shellback. She's not as tough as she looks. She's had to cultivate a veneer of sophistication to help her through the years of hard competition when she was striving in the rat-race to make a place for me, but she's as simple as Janet when it all adds up. She's still a Scot at .heart, underneath the crust—a genuine type. It wasn't her fault that she always had to fight her way through.' 'I haven't found her hard,' Catherine said. 'She's generous and kind.' 'She could be hard on Stacey's behalf,' he answered slowly. ' If she thought something was standing in her way.' 'What could?' Catherine asked a trifle sharply. 'Stacey has everything.' 'She has good looks and the supreme confidence of youth,' Warren agreed. ' But is that really everything?' 'She'll get what she wants,' Catherine said, remembering their visit to Dromore. ' And I think Stacey will get it for herself.' The idea of the house-party was taken up with enthusiasm, especially by Stacey. 'We'll visit people,' she suggested, ' and then ask them all back.' It never occurred to her that any of them might refuse to come. ' We'll have a list and go to Fort William or Inverness and buy what we need there. It's going to be exciting, isn't it? Mom says Janet can talk round one or two of the villagers to come up and help. Does everybody

around here have to be pressganged into doing things?' she added. ' Nobody seems eager to help us.' 'They'll come round eventually,' Catherine predicted. 'Janet is our greatest asset. She'll talk them into it.' Even without the necessary amount of domestic help, the castle was blossoming into a home once more. The chill of deserted rooms and shadowed corridors had disappeared and fires and lights burned everywhere. Often, when she came down the great staircase to the upper hall to find the others gathered about the hearth, Catherine found herself glancing up at the row of portraits on the walls. The stern, painted faces seemed mellowed in the glow of the chandeliers, as if some of the warmth which had been re-created at Crane had seeped beneath the surface to melt away their icy disdain. When Catherine had work to do Stacey rode about the glen alone. She made friends easily and was soon acquainted with most of the farming families between the Pass and Newtonmore. If she had revisited Dromore she kept the fact to herself. 'There's far more people in Glen Larig than there are over here,' she announced, bringing in her list for her brother's inspection. ' I've got twenty names already. Flora Daviot helped me with them. The minister has two daughters and there are one or two farmers and some people at the Forestry we ought to ask.' 'Don't go completely guest-happy,' Warren cautioned. ' You have to creep before you walk in this country. It isn't Canada, you know.' Stacey was still considering her list. 'The Thourets will be staying, of course.' She ticked off her mother's friends. ' Which makes us two men short,' she calculated. ' Cathie,

what about your brother?' she asked. 'Couldn't he come up here? It isn't far from Edinburgh.' 'It is if one hasn't got a car,' Catherine pointed out. ' Colin's still at University.' 'We could fetch him.' Stacey ticked enthusiastically. ' Or somebody might give him a lift.' 'Which now leaves us with one superfluous female,' her brother pointed out. ' Ah, well, I'll just have to cope with two of the nicest girls!' 'Don't be so greedy!' Stacey smiled at him. 'If everything works out the way I want, you won't have to strain your charm too much. I've thought of someone I'm going to ask.' 'Not the laird?' Warren looked amused. 'Why not? He's hidden himself away up there in that hermit's cave of his, but we've just got to root him out. People ought to be sociable,' Stacey declared. 'We can't force the issue.' Warren's smile faded. 'Perhaps you had better leave well alone at Dromore, Stace. The man's definitely antisocial.' Catherine applied herself to the Company report she was busy typing. 'We'll see,' Stacey said, and went out. Warren worked steadily for several minutes before he broke the silence. 'I think it might be a good idea to ask your brother up here,' he suggested. ' He's round about Stacey's age, isn't he?'

'But not at all like Stacey,' Catherine smiled. ' All the same, if you really mean it, I think it would be a good idea. Colin's—rather solemn. My parents expect a genius in the family and Colin's doing his best not to disappoint them. It would be a wonderful change for him. Almost like stepping into a dream.' 'Is that how you think about Crane?' He came to sit on the edge of her table. ' Something not quite real? It's real enough, you know.' His strong fingers fastened over hers. ' Enjoy it, Cathie. I want you to enjoy it.' To her surprise he bent and kissed her on the cheek. 'I'm not sure whether I ought to tell you this yet or not,' he went on, ' but I don't see that there's any need for us to wait. I've fallen in love with you, Cathie. I want you to marry me.' She drew back, gazing up at him in utter astonishment. 'I meant to wait till Mom and Stacey were settled,' he said, ' but I suppose that isn't really important any more. They like Crane and I think they'll settle here.' She looked down at her work. 'If you can buy it,' she reminded him. 'I'm convinced I can,' he said. 'A man doesn't write off that kind of debt in six months.' She got to her feet. 'I wish he could,' she cried passionately. ' Oh, I wish he could!' 'He might marry, of course,' he reflected mildly. ' He could marry money.'

'He wouldn't accept such a solution.' She pushed herself away from him. 'I think he might. He's desperately placed, and Crane means more than just an ordinary family house to him,' he said. ' I saw that side of him the moment we met. Pride in heredity, I suppose you call it over here. In Canada we've got much the same thing, even if it's to a lesser degree. The French, the Scots, the English. Sometimes I wonder if there are any true Canadians. We all hang on to our frail bit of root in the mother country. I don't feel it so much, but sometimes I think Stacey does, deep down. And Mom's really never belonged in Canada. They say it takes three generations to breed it out of us. How would you feel about living there, Cathie? I mean to take you one day, and I want you to go as my wife, not as my secretary.' She met the pleading in his eyes with a faint smile in her own. 'Wait and ask me after the party,' she said. ' I couldn't give you a truly honest answer now. I like you. Warren. I like you very much, but it isn't enough.' His smile was confident. 'I won't rash you,' he promised. ' All I want is for you to enjoy yourself.' 'Surely you want me to be in love with you?' 'In love? Yes.' He took her by the shoulders, turning her to face the light. ' I know you're not, right now,' he said, ' but I can make you love me. Things shape up equally, Cathie. Somebody stable for Stacey and you for me. My mother would rest content then.'

Somebody stable for. Stacey! Did he mean Iain MacAllister? The laird's wife. Was that what Elizabeth Harper saw for her daughter, the ultimate happiness she hoped to achieve? The thought sent a little shiver through her as she took Warren's hands from her shoulders. 'I can't promise you,' she said, ' when I don't know.' He set her free, aware of her sudden agitation. 'Take your time,' he said. ' I can wait.' He seemed cool, almost calculating in his approach, yet she had glimpsed the warmth in him. His mother's happiness meant a great deal to him, and he had promised her that he would look after Stacey. 'I shall be going to London for a few days,' he told her. ' I'd like have taken you with me, but I think you'll be more useful up here. Keep Stacey's generosity from running riot. She'll have the tinkers in for her party, Janet says! We can manage about sixty, I should say. Beyond that it would be bedlam.' Catherine promised, to do what she could, but as the days passed Stacey's list grew and grew. 'You can't be a man short now,' she pointed out when she noticed half a dozen Naval designations on the second page. ' Who are they?' 'They're Fleet Air Arm pilots who come over for the skiing,' Stacey explained. ' They were over at Glen Larig for the weekend, staying at Arduaine. Flora knows them. She knows everybody for miles. They were booking up with her for Christmas, so I thought it would be nice to ask them along.'

Perhaps that would cut out the laird, but Catherine couldn't bring herself to ask. 'I'm going over to Arduaine this afternoon,' Stacey said. ' Would you like to come? If we have snow later on we'll not be able to use the ponies so much.' 'I'll see what your mother says . She may want me to do something for her,' Catherine said. 'She's gone "brambling", as Janet calls it. They set out half an hour ago. I forgot to tell you.' Stacey looked contrite. 'Didn't you want to go?' 'Not much.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Who wants to get torn to shreds for blackberry pie?' They set out for Glen Larig shortly after three o'clock. 'We needn't go over the Pass,' Stacey explained, turning left as they went through the gates. ' I know a different way round the hill. It's longer, but it'll be a change. It's a sort of footpath, a continuation of the one that goes across the fields to the church. There's lots of them among the hills and the ponies just love them.' She bent to fondle her mount's shaggy neck. ' Don't you. Bracken? We can call in at Arduaine House,' she added. ' Flora won't mind.' It was a glorious day for riding among the foothills, and the path Stacey had discovered was well defined, giving them a clear view of the loch as they rose higher and higher above the castle. 'It's called the Sma' Glen,' Stacey informed her. ' When we get to the top we're right in among the hills. I came back this way last week when you and Warren were so busy. Is it really all work, Cathie?' she toned in her saddle to ask. ' Warren's never had a proper girl friend.

He's known a lot of girls, of course, but he's never really gone steady with anyone. I think he likes you.' Catherine flushed. 'I like Warren,' she admitted. ' I've been very happy working for him.' Stacey chuckled. 'If ever I've heard an evasive answer that's it!' she said. ' Why aren't you sure about Warren?' 'I'm sure I like him.' Catherine spurred her pony to a trot. ' This is longer than going over the Pass.' 'Look!' Stacey pointed. 'Down there.' A dog was gathering half a dozen ewes into a neat little group to shepherd them over the hill—a grey collie. It looked like Liath, although Catherine couldn't be sure. 'Somebody must be around.' Stacey's keen blue gaze searched the horizon. ' A dog doesn't work by itself.' They saw Iain MacAllister as they breasted the next rise. He had a sizeable flock of sheep under control and was probably waiting for Liath to bring in the last few strays. 'Yoicks! Tally-ho! or whatever it is. Here I come!' Stacey yelled. Spurring the eager Bracken to a gallop, she plunged into the green valley among the hills, scattering the sheep as she went. Catherine reined her mount to a standstill. An hour's work had been completely spoiled. Possibly more. If. Stacey had been trying to show off her horsemanship she had chosen the wrong way to do it. Liath, coming

up with the compact little bunch of ewes, looked amazed, pausing uncertainly with his tongue lolling out. The laird stood stock still, taking in the situation at a glance. He had nothing to say to Stacey. Not yet. He whistled to the dog and Liath wheeled sharply, circling to the right. The whole flock had scattered and it was a good quarter of an hour before the last straggler was reclaimed. All this time Stacey hadn't moved. Aware of her folly now that it was too late, she was completely contrite. Catherine rode slowly down across the spent heather towards her. 'Don't ask me what made me do it,' Stacey said. ' I just had to. A devil gets into me sometimes. I just had to show him I could handle a horse.' 'You chose a silly way of proving it,' Catherine told her sharply. ' Now we'll have to apologize.' 'Yeah, I suppose so,' Stacey agreed, slackening her rein. Iain was still directing the collie when they rode up to him. 'I'm sorry,' Stacey began without preamble. 'I didn't think the wretched things would bolt.' He turned to look at them, his eyes ice-blue in the strong afternoon light. 'It must have amused you,' he said. ' Perhaps I shouldn't grumble about losing half an hour.' 'I've said I'm sorry.' Stacey stiffened in her saddle. ' It was a mistake. I know now I shouldn't have done it. Cathie thinks I'm an utter fool, so that makes two of you.'

Iain didn't look at Catherine. 'I'd advise you to keep to the roads in future,' he said. ' These smaller glen paths can be treacherous in winter.' 'Flora Daviot says they ski up here,' Stacey defended herself. 'That's a different thing,' he pointed out. ' We mark the ski trails.' He had said ' we', which meant that he must help Flora during the winter months, after the snow came, though that could be his own busiest time. 'We're on our way to Arduaine House,' Stacey announced when there didn't seem to be anything more to say. ' It's more fun coming this way. It isn't a private path, is it?' Her voice had held the faintest suggestion of mockery, but he answered without seeming to notice. 'No,' he said, ' it's a perfectly legitimate right-of-way —so long as you keep to the path.' Stacey jerked at her rein. 'Aw, come on, Cathie!' she urged. ' We're getting nowhere.' She sped back towards the path, but Catherine lingered. The ewes were less restive now, grazing in a rough circle patrolled by Liath. 'You must think we're always getting in the way, Mr MacAllister,' she said, ' but Stacey didn't mean to be obstructive just now. It was— just high spirits. She's a clever horsewoman and I don't suppose she gave the sheep a thought.'

'Obviously not.' He looked up at her with a brief smile. ' I don't hold you responsible,' he said. 'But I am, in a way,' Catherine protested. ' Warren asked me to look after her.' His dark brows drew together in a frown. 'Apparently he expects a great deal of you,' he said. 'What about Stacey's mother?' Catherine smiled. 'She does her best. Janet's the one for Stacey, really. She can't do what she likes in Janet's domain.' 'Janet has a lot of sense,' he agreed. She bent down, holding out her hand to him. 'We'll keep to the footpaths in future,' she promised. 'It's a deal.' 'It's for your own safety.' He stepped over to the pony to take her proffered hand. ' You must have heard of bogs, if Stacey hasn't. We've had a wet summer and there's plenty of them around here. The bog-myrtle and the cotton-grass won't always be there to warn you, although the shelties can generally smell the peat a mile away.' His fingers closed over hers, hard and strong. 'Thanks, I'll remember,' Catherine said, her heart pounding like a sledgehammer. ' I'm reasonably careful, as a rule.' 'I'm sure you are.' He stood back to let her turn her pony's head in the direction of the path. ' Beannachd leat!'

It was the Gaelic phrase Flora had used to bid them goodbye that day she had taken her back to the castle. Blessing with thee! Surely Iain MacAllister couldn't have been angry when he had said it. She rode the remainder of the way to Arduaine House thinking about him. Flora seemed pleased to see them. 'I've been lending a hand to whitewash the barn,' she explained her bespattered appearance. 'We have the dances in there in summer. People seem to like it that way, though we use the house from now on. The barn is useful for storing ski equipment. It also keeps a lot of water out of the gun-room!' She led the way round to the front door. It was a door that always seemed to be open and the autumn sunshine flooded into the house ahead of them. A log fire burned in the big main living-room, sending orange shafts of light up to the rafters, and a table in the middle of the floor had been set for tea. 'I was expecting Iain,' Flora admitted. 'He was coming to have a look at one of the shelties! It went lame on me yesterday, and for the life of me I can't see why.' Iain seemed to be Flora's mainstay. When things went wrong she turned to him naturally, as she would to a brother, yet no brother could have kindled the look which Catherine saw in her eyes. She had noticed it before, at Dromore and here, at Arduaine, and it was common knowledge that Flora had been in love with Iain. Long ago, but did love like that ever change? Flora was staunch and loyal in everything she did, seeing no reason to hide her affection once it was given. What was more, she probably knew the laird better than anyone else. They were practically the same age and they had

been brought up within a stone's throw of each other as distances go in these parts. The ceilidhs and the dances and the picnics among the hills were things they had shared from childhood onwards. Arduaine House was to Glen Larig what the castle was to Loch Fionn, and Flora had inherited it on her father's death because he had no son to come after him. She had put it to practical use without sacrificing any of its original charm, and she worked hard to maintain the family atmosphere. 'I like coming here,' Stacey said, resting her riding- crop on the arm of her chair. Her legs were straddled across it, her hat pushed to the back of her head. 'Maybe we'd better have our tea, Flora,' she added. 'Your friend the laird's going to be late.' Flora paused on her way out to bring the teapot. 'Do you mean you met Iain?' she asked. Stacey nodded. 'We did, and I scattered his pet ewes for him. Truly I'm sorry, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't gallop across the moor.' 'There isn't any official reason,' Flora said slowly, ' so long as you remember that other people have to work.' 'Yeah, I know.' Stacey heaved a deep sigh. ' I just don't think. That's the trouble with me.' 'I dare say Iain will understand, and it shouldn't have held him up so very much.' Flora glanced at the beautiful old chiming clock on the mantelpiece. ' It's after four. I'll infuse the tea and he may come before we begin.'

Catherine felt that Iain wouldn't come. Not until they had gone, anyway. Stacey had told him that they were on their way -to Arduaine and he would expect them to stay for tea. If he wanted to see Flora alone he would wait. Alone? They had every opportunity to be alone, these two workers among the hills. It must have been Flora's dearest wish to move over the Pass, to be mistress of Crane, yet someone else had come between her and Iain—the ' other one ' of Janet's dour reckoning. It was useless trying to speculate about what had happened. One day Janet might tell her, and perhaps not. They kept their own counsel in the glens when they were among strangers. Some secrets were locked deeply and loyally in their hearts. Flora was too bright and energetic a person to look as if she had any part in a tragic love affair. It was only occasionally, when the smile died in her eyes, that something of the truth showed through. She brought in the tea and Stacey got to her feet to scrutinize the good things on the table. 'No wonder you get people coming back, year after year. Flora,' she said, sampling scones and bannocks spread with honey. ' You feed them too well.' Flora smiled at her. 'Try a pancake,' she suggested. ' You'll be as good a cook as I am when you get to be my age!' 'Which reminds me,' Stacey said. ' My birthday party. Can you find anyone at Inverlarig to help? They'll need to stay at the castle while our guests are there. Nobody seems eager to help at Glen Fionn.' Flora turned to the hearth to re-fill the teapot.

'Have you tried asking Iain?' she said, her face half hidden. 'The laird? Goodness gracious! Why?' 'I think he might be helpful.' 'I haven't exactly endeared myself to him,' Stacey pointed out. ' It might be asking too much.' 'That wouldn't matter, if it was for Crane.' Flora turned with the teapot in her hand. ' Would you like me to mention it to him?' 'Oh, would you, Flora? You're such a dear!' Stacey went blissfully on eating her pancake, her troubles at an end. 'Mrs Harper will be tremendously grateful,' Catherine said. ' She's having to do a lot of the chores herself, and Warren wanted this to be a holiday for her.' 'Leave it to me,' Flora said as they rose to go. ' It doesn't look as if you're going to see Iain, anyway. Perhaps, he'll wait till tomorrow morning now, although it's not like him to leave a sick beast unattended.' She walked with them to the gates where the painted board said: ARDUAINE HOUSE PRIVATE HOTEL in gold block lettering and ' Skiing and Pony-trekking' underneath. The road to the Pass was empty. 'Let's go back another way,' Stacey suggested restlessly. ' There's a bridle-path through the hills up this way.' She reined in her pony. ' It's much shorter.' 'How do you know?' Catherine would have preferred to keep to the road.

'I've been. I used it last week, for a change. It goes along that ridge and skirts the hill you can just see over there,' Stacey pointed. ' Then it goes in between that one and that one and comes out on the far side of the burn.' 'Which burn?' 'The one that runs down the hill beside Dromore.' 'We'll stick to the road, thank you,' Catherine decided firmly. 'It's twice the distance, and you'll stand the chance of meeting the laird if you stick to the road,' Stacey grinned. ' You wouldn't want to face his wrath twice in one day now, would you? Anyway, it's getting late. We stayed too long at Flora's.' It was this final argument which persuaded Catherine. The sun had already disappeared over the far side of the hills, painting deep blue shadows in the glen, and the loch water lying beneath them was turning grey. The hush of evening lay all about them and the sheep were settling down among the heather. 'Oh, all right,' she agreed. ' If you're sure it is shorter.' 'Trust me!' Stacey said, leading the way. 'It looks like a Forestry road,' Catherine remarked when they had gone about a mile. 'It is for part of the way, then we branch off.' They seemed to climb very high, but the path they followed was well defined and frequently used, if its rutted state was proof to go by. 'We're going up quite a long way.' Catherine reined in her pony. ' It'll be turning dark soon. Are you quite sure about this, Stacey?'

'Sure as sure,' Stacey said, riding on. Very high and very straight on either side of them, the pines seemed to shut out the sky, but here and there they came on a clearing where felling had been going ahead for some time. Piles of cut and trimmed timber lay by the roadside, but still the giant trees marched on in their dark and stately phalanxes to meet the skyline. Acres and acres of them, Catherine mused. The Forestry concessions were often the life's blood of a Highland estate, but these vast, dense plantations were all on the Glen Larig side of the Pass. Over in Glen Fionn there was too much scree. It was sheep-rearing land. Stacey appeared to be selecting paths at random. 'You're sure you haven't missed the way?' Catherine asked again. 'Absolutely sure. I wish you would trust me.' Stacey pulled up to consider their position. They were high up now, almost at the tree line. ' I remember this bit. At least, I think I do -' 'You think}' Catherine rode up beside her. 'For heaven's sake, Stacey!' 'Don't bug me!' Stacey exclaimed. ' We go right ahead. I told you— over the ridge.' Out in the open they found themselves in a shallow valley among the mountain peaks. It was the most desolate place Catherine had ever seen and the path ahead of them wandered on until it disappeared over the shoulder of a distant hill. They were facing due west. The sunset clouds, like golden rafts anchored on an azure sea, were still ahead of them, yet they should have turned slightly south. 'Stacey,' Catherine said as steadily as she could, ' we've come the wrong way. Somewhere down there among the trees we missed the path.'

Stacey knew when she was beaten. 'I guess you're right,' she acknowledged. ' What do we do now?' 'Go back.' 'Not ail that way, in the dark,' Stacey groaned. ' It's going to be pitch black by the time we reach the trees again.' 'If we go on we're simply asking for trouble,' Catherine reasoned. ' We're going due west. We ought to have turned south by now.' 'Gosh!' Stacey said. ' We're lost.' 'It isn't funny.' 'No, but it is exciting, don't you think? It's a good job there aren't any grizzlies around, like in Canada. Once Warren was on a fishing trip when a grizzly attacked the camp. He said it was horrific while it lasted.' Stacey was a problem. At one moment a sophisticate, the next an impulsive teenager, she was endearing and exasperating in the same breath. No wonder Warren wanted a ' steadying influence ' to come into her life. As it grew darker she shivered. 'This is an awful place, Cathie,' she shuddered. ' All these shadows and the silence. I'm not chicken, really I'm not, but I can't help wishing I was home.' They had travelled another half mile in silence when her pony stumbled and fell.

'Oh, Bracken, get up! Please get up,' she implored, disentangling herself from the stirrups. ' We're relying on you. You mustn't let us down. You simply mustn't!' Catherine dismounted, but the sturdy little sheltie was on his feet before her. 'Do you think he's hurt?' Stacey asked. ' Seriously hurt?' 'I don't think so.' They examined the pony's foreleg between them. ' It seems all right.' 'Maybe we should lead him for a bit,' Stacey suggested. Eventually it was the shelties who led them. The sure-footed little animals seemed to know the path and they let them have their heads. There was no moon and it was dark and chilly under the pines. The little sounds of the night fluttered out to them—the scurry of a rabbit; a bird caught in the undergrowth; an owl flapping heavily from tree to tree. 'It's different through the day,' Stacey said. When they saw the twin headlights of a car coming towards them Catherine could have wept with joy. 'It's a jeep,' Stacey cried. ' Don't tell me the laird has come looking for us!' The vehicle halted and the lights were switched off. A door slammed and footsteps—heavy footsteps- crunched over the pitted surface of the road. Bracken whinnied his fear, backing up along the way they had come as a tall, familiar figure emerged out of the shadows. 'Iain -' Catherine's voice was no more than a doubtful whisper.

The laird was at her side in an instant. 'Are you hurt—either of you?' he asked abruptly. 'No.' She bit her Hp to stop it trembling. ' We're always in trouble— of our own making. We took the wrong path.' She didn't want to blame Stacey. 'Stacey thought she knew it, I suppose.' He took her by the arm. ' All right, Katrina braec,' he said with amazing gentleness. ' It's not as bad as it might have been. We thought one or other of you had had an accident.' 'How did you find us?' she wanted to know, glad of the comforting pressure of his arm as he led her towards the jeep. 'Instinct, perhaps,' he said lightly, although he didn't appear to be smiling. 'Is that the laird?' Stacey came back down the path, leading a halfreluctant Bracken. ' I thought I recognized your voice.' 'You ought to by now,' Iain said. ' We keep meeting all the time.' 'In the worst of circumstances,' Stacey answered. ' You're always in at the kill, aren't you? All the same, we're grateful. It was getting awful cold and awful dark back there.' 'What made you take the Forestry road?' he asked. 'Didn't you realize you were walking away from the Pass?' 'We noticed it when the sun set,' Catherine admitted, ' but by then we were miles out of our way. How did you know we were missing?' 'I met Mrs Harper. She was on her way to Dromore, thinking you might be there.' His tone was dry. ' When she and Janet got back to

Crane and found you missing they didn't worry too much till it started to get dark, and then they felt that something must have gone wrong. I was on my way to Glen Larig when I met Mrs Harper. We split up after that. She couldn't bring her car over these roads. The jeep was more suitable, so I took this side of the hill.' He turned to Stacey. ' Can you ride one of the ponies and lead the other? He seems to have a limp.' 'It's Bracken,' Stacey explained. ' He got stuck in a pothole, but it isn't too bad. Do you mean Cathie ought to travel in the jeep?' He nodded. 'That would be the best idea,' he decided. ' You're the better horsewoman, I believe.' 'You—won't drive too fast?' 'No, we won't leave you behind.' He settled Catherine in the jeep, scrutinizing her face intently as he closed the door. 'You're sure you feel all right?' he asked. She looked into his eyes and found them full of concern. 'I'm terribly stiff and desperately cold,' she was bound to admit, ' but I'll survive.' She forced a smile. ' That's the worst of being brought up in a city!' He closed the door, going round the bonnet to see if Stacey was safely mounted. Evidently he considered them his personal responsibility until he could hand them over to Mrs Harper.

Remembering that he could have been comfortably installed at Arduaine House by now, Catherine felt guilty. 'We've taken you so far out of your way,' she said. ' We always seem to be cropping up at the wrong moment.' 'You certainly did this afternoon.' He started the engine. ' I suppose I sounded rather churlish, but I had timed that operation pretty thoroughly. I wanted all the ewes down before I left for Glen Larig. I had promised to look at a sick pony.' He looked back to make sure that Stacey was following them. ' This is going to be a bit tedious,' he said, ' but we must keep together.' Bumped and jolted on the uneven road, they were thrown close to each other in the dark little vehicle, and Catherine knew an almost irresistible desire to put her head against his shoulder for comfort and warmth. The tension of the past two hours had been abruptly snapped and her nerves were raw. Looking round, she could just make out his clean-cut profile in the darkness and the shape of his hands on the wheel. He didn't make conversation. They drove in silence for a very long time, but she was no longer embarrassed by it. Every now and then Stacey would trot up behind them, reducing the distance between her and the jeep, and he would slow down immediately. It took them almost an hour to reach the head of the Pass where Mrs Harper was waiting. 'Oh, thank heaven!' she exclaimed. ' Are either of you hurt? You, Stacey? Why aren't you in the jeep?' 'Someone had to lead the ponies.' Their adventure over, Stacey was more nonchalant. ' Bracken slipped and hurt his leg a bit, but it isn't serious.'

'Am I glad to see you!' her mother said. ' Though you're going to have a lot of explaining to do. Warren left word you weren't to go traipsing over the hills on your own. He'll be real mad when he finds out about this.' 'He doesn't need to,' her daughter pointed out. ' Unless you tell him.' 'You're real ungrateful,' Elizabeth Harper sighed. ' I hope you'll thank Mr MacAllister properly for finding you and. bringing you back.' 'I'll try,' Stacey said. ' I'm sure Cathie has.' Mrs Harper glanced in Catherine's direction for the first time. Up here on the bare stretch of scree surrounding the Pass the light was stronger and she was aware of her son's secretary with a keener insight than before. What she saw troubled her. Catherine was standing beside the jeep looking up at Iain MacAllister while she tried to thank him. 'If you'd like to leave the ponies with me,' he offered, ' I'll send them down in the morning with Hamish. He helps me occasionally with the sheep. That would let you all ride back to the castle and I can have a look at Bracken's leg at Dromore.' Suddenly Catherine thought of Dromore as an alien place. Iain should be coming with them, back to the castle, where he belonged. Nobody else could really live at Crane and be truly part of it. His forebears had built up its history for four hundred years. They were Crane. Warren, even if he married and eventually possessed it, would never achieve that magnificent aura of belonging. Every stone, every turret, every narrow, deeply embrasured window might be etched in their memory for ever, but the dark faces looking down from the walls of Crane were this man's face. There never could be a substitute.

Mrs Harper held out her hand to him. 'Maybe we can say " thank you " in some other way, Mr MacAllister,' she suggested. ' Some more practical way. You've been very kind.' Stacey handed over the ponies. 'What about my birthday party?' she asked. ' You'll come, won't you?' She was looking up into Iain's stern face. ' Mom would love to have you and so would I.' Her inward recoil must have shown in Catherine's expression. How could Stacey do this, knowing so well what Iain thought about Crane? To invite him back as a guest under his own roof was unpardonable in the circumstances. She held her breath, waiting for his reply. 'It's more than kind of you,' he said stiffly, ' but I'm quite sure you will have plenty of other guests to attend to—your own personal friends.' 'There's room and to spare,' Elizabeth Harper assured him. ' I'm going to take it as a personal snub, Mr MacAllister, if you refuse. I haven't had time to make your acquaintance so far—nor the opportunity, for that matter—and we want young people at the castle. It needs to be lived in. You'll agree with me there, I'm sure.' Iain turned towards the jeep, his face in shadow now. 'It's one of the things I regret most,' he said briefly. ' Crane shouldn't be allowed to die.' 'Then you'll come?' Elizabeth pressed her advantage. ' It wouldn't be quite the same without the laird, you know!'

The showpiece, Catherine thought, yet she couldn't really accuse the Harpers of snobbery. They had everything they could possibly desire, and it was partly kindness which activated Stacey's mother to second her invitation. Kindness and an ambition for Stacey which she could not keep to herself. 'I hope he'll come,' she said as they drove down the glen. ' I like that young man. He's the serious, stable type who will make a good husband. He shouldn't worry so much about the debt on the estate,' she added. ' He could marry well.' It was clear enough where her thoughts were leading, and suddenly Catherine wanted to escape, to stop the car and run as fast as her legs would carry her from this kind, matronly woman who wanted more than just the material things in life for her children. 'I don't mind telling you I've been worried about Stacey,' she confided when they were finally ensconced before a roaring fire in Crane's lovely old upper hall. ' She's been allowed far too much freedom, but it did seem that she needed that little bit extra in loving and understanding. She didn't have her father to help bring her up, and Warren couldn't be around all the time. I guess Stacey needs a firmer hand than mine, occasionally. She's the type who'll marry young and we won't be able to stop her. All we can do is try to see that she meets the right sort of young men.' She smiled into the glowing heart of the fire. ' Nothing would please me more,' she added, ' than to see her happily settled here in Britain with somebody like the young laird.' The alarming suggestion left Catherine speechless. 'It would solve so many problems, wouldn't it?' Mrs Harper went on. ' Stacey comes into her money when she's eighteen. It's quite a substantial sum and it would make all the difference to Crane.'

'If Iain MacAllister thought that way.' The words rushed out before Catherine could control them. ' But I don't think he does. He would have to be in love with Stacey before he married her. Surely you see that he could have solved Crane's problem that way long ago? He isn't—unattractive, and there must be plenty of wealthy girls in his immediate circle, in Edinburgh and elsewhere.' 'He doesn't give them a chance, does he?' Elizabeth mused. ' As far as I can gather, he's seldom in Edinburgh, or in London either. He prefers Badenoch, which is a long way removed from either of them. Janet says he's a fanner at heart, but I suspect the real truth goes deeper than that. There's some sort of mystery in his past, a former love affair, I suspect, and maybe it ended tragically.' She sighed, stretching out her hands to the warmth. ' These things happen. We're— deprived of love and for a long time we think we can't live without the one that went away, but we have to look directly at our sorrow in the end and learn to live with it.' The ' one that went away'! Janet's ' other one '. 'I can imagine Iain caring very deeply.' Catherine's voice was not quite steady. ' It may not have been so very long ago.' 'No.' Elizabeth Harper rested her head against the high back of her chair. ' But we can't go on mourning our loss for ever. I thought life had finished for me when Bill died fifteen years ago, and I can still look back and wonder where I got the courage to go on, but maybe it was because I had to, because there was nobody there to help, nobody to fall back on. When you're alone— absolutely alone—you can't sit down and weep. You just can't allow yourself that luxury, I guess.' She gazed across the firelit hearth. 'Tell me about your family, Cathie,' she said. ' Your mother and father and the brother you're so fond of.'

Forcing her thoughts away from Crane and its master to her home in Edinburgh, Catherine recounted as much as she could of their simple way of life. 'We must have them up here,' Elizabeth said when she finally rose to her feet. ' I'd like to meet them.'

CHAPTER VI When Janet heard about Stacey's invitation to Iain she looked aghast. 'He'll never come,' she told Stacey bluntly. 'You can take my word for it.' 'You think him too proud?' Stacey was genuinely perplexed. ' But why should he be? He hasn't lost the castle. We've only rented it, though Warren does want to buy it. It would be fun being part of all this, though.' Her clear eyes ranged down the long dining-room where Janet had just served their breakfast. ' Imagine all these generations, the same family sitting here in this very room worrying about the same things, planning the same sort of parties! There must have been dozens and dozens of birthday parties here, Janet, just like it will be for me tomorrow.' 'I've seen a few.' There was an odd note of reserve in Janet's voice. ' Ordinary birthdays inside the family circle and the great event when the young master came of age. The glen was agog from end to end with rumours of this and that, but it was the old pattern that prevailed. The dinner-party for a handful of intimate friends, the dancing here and in the clachan afterwards and the bonfire alight up there at Dromore, where it could be seen for miles. The young master stood in this very room looking at it with pride and humility in his eyes. I'll never forget his face that night. It shone with a bright purpose, for he must have vowed never to let Crane go.' Catherine rose from her chair. 'I've got some work to attend to,' she said huskily. 'We're driving to Dalwhinnie to meet Warren,' Stacey reminded her. ' Don't you want to come?'

'I think I'd better stay and get on with the letters.' She was almost reluctant to meet Warren after only a few short days, Catherine realized. It seemed as if he had been away for years. When he came, however, he brought so much excitement with him that her strange new reserve passed unnoticed. 'My present!' Stacey cried, grasping the expensive- looking box he carried under his arm. 'What is it, Warren? Please let me see.' 'You flatter yourself!' he teased. ' This is for Cathie, for getting on with the job while I've been away.' 'She's been working like a slave,' Stacey agreed, trying to hide her disappointment. ' But I thought maybe you would have bought her something else— something smaller.' 'Such as?' Stacey made a face at him. 'A ring, maybe.' Warren considered the arch suggestion. 'Perhaps I have,' he laughed. Catherine hurried ahead of them into the hall. 'I wish you wouldn't, Stacey,' she said when Warren went to hang up his coat. ' It's terribly embarrassing.' Stacey laughed. 'Anyone with half an eye could see how things are between you and Warren,' she said confidently.

'But, Stacey, they're not!' '" Methinks thou dost protest too much"!' Stacey quoted inaccurately. ' Mom would love it, you know. She thinks you're just right for Warren, and she's the complete matchmaker!' Warren came back before Catherine could think of an answer and Mrs Harper arrived to preside over the teacups. Their American guests were expected later in the afternoon. They were driving up from Glasgow, where they had been spending a few days on the Clyde. ''What do you think of our decorations?' Stacey asked, her eyes sparkling as she looked round the hall. ' Are they going to impress the laird?' Her brother turned in his chair to look at her. 'You've asked him?' He seemed surprised and not very pleased. 'Of course we've asked him,' his mother answered. 'We couldn't possibly pass him by. It would look like it was deliberate and the glen would take it as an affront.' 'I was wondering how Iain Angus MacAllister would take it,' Warren said. 'He said "no" at first,' Stacey told him, ' but afterwards he agreed that Crane needed wakening up. He said he didn't want to see it die.' Warren rose to his feet, stretching out a hand to Catherine. 'Come and show me what you've done,' he said. ' Stacey and you have certainly been busy.'

'Duncan helped, and your mother arid Janet.' Catherine put her teacup aside. ' We got most of the greenery from the estate and you're to pick up the remainder of the flowers in the morning. They'll be on the first train from Inverness.' A buffet table was already in place in the dining-room. The cut flowers were to be used lavishly in this room and Mrs Harper wanted to arrange them herself. Catherine and Stacey had robbed the castle grounds for the greenery in the hall, banking it along the minstrels' gallery and down the massive staircase, but in here the colours were to be white and gold to complement the magnificent ceiling and the lovely yellow pine panelling. No expense had been spared to make the day one to be remembered by Stacey and all her guests. 'Do you think MacAllister will put in an appearance?' Warren asked abruptly. 'I don't know.' Catherine's voice was not quite steady. ' I'm not sure that I'd want to come back under the circumstances if I were in his place.' 'He might think it expedient.' He opened the door into the conservatory. ' You never know.' 'Expedient—for what?' Catherine turned to look at him. 'Leave it!' He sounded half ashamed. ' I think he might come, but we won't argue about his motives.' He pulled her towards him, imprisoning both her hands in his. ' I've missed you, Cathie,' he said. ' Missed you a lot. I should have backed my own hunch and taken you with me.' He bent his head to kiss her fully on the lips. 'Please, Warren -'

She freed her hands, half resisting as the door behind them opened and Stacey came in. 'Oh, sorry!' she apologized, unabashed. 'I had no idea—but the Thourets have arrived. Mom's down in front greeting them right now. She thinks you ought to be there.' She gave her brother a friendly grin. ' L didn't mean to gatecrash, but you're here for a long time now, aren't you?' Catherine made her escape. She wouldn't be expected to join the family party in the hall and she needed time to readjust her thoughts. Warren's kiss had been both passionate and possessive, long, slow and demanding, yet she had promised him nothing. Was he taking it for granted that she would say ' yes' in the end? Perhaps so, and perhaps she would be a fool to refuse him. She liked him, he was generous and kind, and he was fun to be with. She knew that wasn't enough, but it was a good start. He wanted her to marry him and he was willing to wait. Not for ever, of course, but for as long as it took her to make up her mind. And nobody would frown on their engagement, neither Elizabeth Harper nor her own parents. The whole proposition seemed ideal if it wasn't for the hesitation in her own heart. She attempted to put a name to it without success, and not until the following day did she have even a glimmer of the truth. Stacey's birthday morning dawned bright and clear. In spite of the fact that it was now November, a pale sun still shone and the roads were firm and dry. Snow had fallen on the Cairn Gorm, and Ben Macdhui and Cairn Toul were ghostly giants away to the east, but the sides of the glens remained green. Excitement was the keynote of the day, engendered by Stacey's happiness from the moment she opened her eyes in her turret room.

The key to the balcony door was still missing, but it was hardly the sort of weather to put it into use. Stacey had apparently forgotten about it. When she came down to breakfast Catherine was already in the room. 'Has the postman come?' she asked eagerly. 'Not yet, but you can make do with what's here, in the meantime,' Catherine suggested, adding her own small gift to the family pile. 'Many happy returns, Stacey!' Stacey gave her a great hug. 'Everybody's being so kind,' she said, opening gift after gift with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl and exclaiming over each one in turn. ' Cathie, how wonderful of you! A mohair stole! You knew I'd love one after we saw them being woven down in the clachan! Warren's given me a pearl necklace,' she ran on. 'He must have bought it in Edinburgh. What did he bring you, by the way?' Catherine flushed. 'It was a handbag—a rather expensive one. I wish he hadn't,' she said. 'Why ever not?' Stacey was admiring her other presents and didn't trouble to look up. ' He appreciates you. You've worked very hard to please him.' Was that true? She would have worked hard in any case, but the little extra duties she had performed so willingly at Crane to make it come to life again seemed to have little to do with her job as Warren's secretary. Had they been done for Warren or for some other reason? For Crane itself, perhaps?

'I've enjoyed doing these things, Stacey,' she said. ' Crane repays everything. You couldn't wish for a lovelier setting for your birthday, and there's still the dinner to come and the ball afterwards.' 'I can hardly wait,' Stacey admitted as her mother and their house guests came through from the hall. Mrs Thouret was a tall, plain woman with a harsh Southern accent which grated on the ear, but she had the merit of a sense of humour and was the complete foil for her rather stolid-looking husband whose main preoccupations were business and golf, in that order. She had monopolized the conversation the evening before and she did so again, admiring Stacey's gifts as she presented her own. Her daughter, Josette, was a wide- eyed rather subdued teenager about Stacey's age who slid into her chair at the breakfast table declaring that she ' Couldn't eat a thing—not one thing!' because she was too excited. 'Josette's been lying awake half the night hoping to see the castle ghost,' Ginette Thouret laughed. ' She'll be real disappointed if she doesn't!' 'I haven't heard there is one,' Stacey grinned. ' We'll have to ask Iain when he comes. There's sure to be something at Crane.' 'Even if it's only a skeleton in a cupboard,' Warren remarked, coming in unobserved. 'You're horrible!' his sister protested. ' There aren't any locked cupboards at Crane—only locked doors. I can't find the key to my balcony anywhere.' She turned to Catherine. ' Yours was locked, too, wasn't it?' she added thoughtfully. ' Have you found a key?' 'No.' Catherine caught Janet's eye across the table. ' No, I haven't, and it hardly matters, does it, when it isn't exactly balcony weather?'

'Mr MacAllister took the keys away,' Janet said quietly. ' There wasan accident at Crane some time ago. It was—during a party. One of the guests—a young girl—fell from the balustrade.' A gasp of horror spread through the sunlit room. 'Was she killed?' Ginette Thouret wanted to know. Janet shook her head. 'No, but she was injured—badly injured.' She took up her tray. ' That's why the doors were locked. The laird wouldn't want such a thing to happen again.' It was no more than half the story. Catherine could see that by the expression on Janet's face, the tight- lipped reluctance to reveal something which she herself didn't wholly understand. 'If she had died,' Stacey said dramatically, ' she would have come back to haunt Crane.' 'She may well do that,' Janet answered. ' Alive or dead.' 'Whatever did she mean?' Mrs Thouret asked when she had left the room. 'Oh, Janet has these ideas,' Elizabeth Harper said. ' You've not got to take any notice, Ginny. She's a typical Highlandwoman. The laird's her idol. She wouldn't bear a word spoken against him, even supposing there was anything to hear, which I very much doubt. He's reserved, that's true, but isn't that a change nowadays when most young men of his age are far too bold? I find him absolutely right for the job he's doing. He couldn't be a fly-by-night or a gay Lothario and work as hard as he does, and even if he was inclined that way before he's changed now. I've never thought to ask Janet about his past.'

Ginette Thouret laughed. 'You sound just like any plotting old mama, Liz!' she declared. ' Is he all that eligible?' 'He hasn't any money, if that's what you mean,' Mrs Harper returned, ' but there's Crane. He still has the castle.' 'You've no idea how bucked we were when we knew we were coming to a real castle,' Ginette smiled. ' We'd never thought of living in one—only looking. Albert said they were all in ruin or shipped out to the States stone by stone long ago! But there are dozens, aren't there? We've come across them all over the place. D'you know something? If it hadn't been for you inviting us up here we wouldn't have seen half of this wonderful country. We'd have seen St Andrews and Troon and Turnberry and all the other golf courses, but that would have been the lot! But now we're here, at a real family party. No wonder we're all amazed!' Her son came in with his father, both looking slightly bewildered and lost without their golf clubs, and Josette rushed out with Stacey to meet the postman, who had cycled up from the clachan. Catherine took the opportunity of going to help Janet. Although they had managed to recruit assistance from the village, whether at the laird's instigation or otherwise, there was still a lot to arrange and she wanted to spare Mrs Harper as much work as possible. Janet had insisted on doing most of the catering, leaving only the birthday cake and a selection of savouries to come from Fort William. Three whole salmon lay, cooked and garnished, on the kitchen table, together with chickens in aspic and glazed tongues and various shellfish sent specially from Aberdeen. When it was all finally set out on the long table in the dining-room it looked a feast spread for a king.

Elizabeth Harper put the finishing touches to her flower arrangements with a very tender look in her eyes. 'Who would have thought it?' she said to Catherine. 'My daughter having a birthday in such a splendid setting! Am I being too ambitious, Cathie, wishing that she might have many more under the same roof?' For a moment Catherine felt that she couldn't answer. A mother's hope for her daughter's happiness had stabbed straight to her heart. 'It's natural to want the best for the people we love/ she said unsteadily at last. Elizabeth looked at her quizzically, her head on one side, and then she put a gentle hand on her arm. 'My dear,' she said, ' when did you say your brother was arriving? Warren will go down with the car to meet him. Why not go along with him? Everything here seems to be under control and Ginny can give me a hand if I'm stuck.' All the way to Dalwhinnie Catherine's thoughts were in chaos. Warren wanted her beside him, but in reality she was very far away. Again and again the picture of that austere room at Dromore forced itself into her mind and she could picture Iain coming in off the hill to sit down to his lonely meal in the kitchen beyond. If he had appreciated what she had done in tidying up the house for him, making it look more homely, he had not said so, and the chances were that he probably resented her interference. It was the life he had deliberately chosen for himself, the existence he wanted. He had not asked her to go there. On the contrary, he had let them see all too plainly that he considered it a form of trespass. He didn't want anyone to be sorry for him.

Sorry? It wasn't pity she felt. It never had been, because she had known how he would resent pity, but she felt it like a great, unutterable longing lying heavily in her heart. I love him, she thought. I've never loved anyone else. It can't be Warren. Her hands trembled as she sat with them clasped tightly over Warren Harper's love gift. I know this now, she thought. I must have known it all along. That day in Edinburgh, perhaps, when he came into the hotel. I had to look at him; I had to remember, and his image has been stamped on my heart ever since. And now we're here, in the same narrow glen, within a stone's throw of one another, and yet it makes no difference. He doesn't see me. Or, if he does, it's only as someone like Stacey, proving herself a nuisance. They turned in at the station entrance to wait for the train. 'I ought to offer you some leave at Christmas,' Warren said. ' You'll want to be with your people, but we'll miss you at the castle.' 'I should go home,' she agreed. ' Especially for New Year. My parents will expect it.' 'I'd like to meet them,' he said. ' Maybe they could come up here.' The train came in, saving her an answer. Already she felt that she might not be at Crane herself by the end of another month. 'There's Colin,' she said automatically. ' He looks as if he could do with a change.' Shy and slightly diffident, Colin came towards them to be introduced to hex employer. Warren made it easy for her. 'Hullo, Colin!' he said. ' I'm certainly glad to know you. Cathie's never tired of singing your praises, but I guess you can't be that good!' He glanced down at Catherine. ' I wonder if my sister sets up

my stock with people behind my back the same as you do,' he added. ' Somehow, I doubt it.' 'You needn't,' Catherine laughed, taking Colin's arm. ' She's very fond of you in her own way.' 'It doesn't show,' Warren smiled. ' Not all the time. You looking forward to the party, Colin?' he asked. 'Very much, thank you.' Colin glanced in Catherine's direction. ' It was tremendously kind of you to invite me.' On the way back to Glen Fionn they spoke of Edinburgh and his studies. 'You'll have to come back when the skiing gets into full swing,' Warren said. ' I hear it's quite something nowadays.' They turned in between the gateposts with the two massive stone eagles holding the MacAllister shield, and Colin sat rather tensed, waiting for the castle to come into view. When he saw it he drew in a deep breath, and then his eyes went beyond it, past the trees and the white gleam of the waterfall to the low grey house high up on the hill. Standing on its bare ridge above the tree line, Dromore looked more remote, more isolated than ever. 'Who lives up there?' he asked. 'Our laird,' Warren answered dryly. ' The real owner of Crane.' He drew the car up before the castle and Stacey came running out to greet their latest guest. She didn't seem particularly impressed by Colin. 'I expect you'll want to see your room,' she said, ' and have a wash and change. Everything's in the most awful pickle, but we'll get

sorted out eventually. You're at college, aren't you? In Edinburgh. Mom wanted me to go to college back home, but I wasn't bright enough, I guess. I preferred to come here.' She drew Colin forward to be introduced to the other members of the house party. ' This is Josette Thouret and her brother, Philippe. Mom and I met them on the plane coming over.' Catherine took Colin to his room. 'I had no idea,' he said. 'That it would be like this?' She smiled at him. ' You'll love it, Colin. Especially the library and the old family portraits.' 'So many old houses have been converted into hotels these days,' he mused, crossing to the window to look out. ' You were lucky, Cathie, hitting on a job like this.' 'It was the merest chance,' she said, wondering if it were chance that really governed life. Supposing someone else from the agency had been sent to Warren that day? ' It could have been quite different.' 'You'll never want to come back to Edinburgh to work after this.' His words were the echo of the thought in her heart. 'I'll have to if the Harpers go back to Canada,' she said. ' Their present lease is only for six months.' 'You'd think they wouldn't want to leave a place like this once they were comfortably installed,' Colin said, ' but I suppose the owner will want to come back.' 'Yes.' He took off his tweed jacket.

'Is there a bathroom handy?' he asked. 'Along the corridor and to your left. You've got an hour before dinner.' Catherine paused at the open door. ' I hope you're going to enjoy yourself, Colin.' He looked at her uncertainly. 'I think I shall,' he said. ' Stacey seems nice and quite friendly.' Dinner was a small, intimate meal, almost a family affair, held in the morning-room because the dining-room was already set out with the more elaborate buffet. Stacey, who had demanded candles as the only illumination, looked radiant in a white chiffon evening gown, highwaisted in the Empire manner, with a posy of buttercup-yellow flowers tucked into the narrow velvet belt which ended in two long yellow streamers in front. Yellow and white, complemented by the flowers in the dining-room where she would entertain her guests. Catherine wore the only evening dress she possessed, a simple seagreen satin devoid of ornament and simply relying on its colour for its effect. It was the colour for her hair; the colour she suited best. Josette Thouret wore pink. The first guests began to arrive at eight o'clock. Car after car drove up, spilled its occupants into the lower hall, and drove away round to the stables, where Duncan waited to supervise the parking arrangements. 'It's just like old times,' Janet whispered as she passed Catherine with the silver punch-bowl in her hands. ' Only the rightful one isn't up there, waiting in the hall.' It was true. However hospitable Crane might look, there was something missing. It wasn't anything that met the eye in an instant,

for the castle had come to life, at last. Under the magnificent chandeliers the polished leaves of the laurel and the gleam of ancient silver threw back the light, setting the scene for a dignified reception. Elizabeth Harper and her son stood on either side of Stacey at the head of the short flight of stone steps leading from the lower hall, while their house guests gathered round the fire. Up in the minstrels' gallery a small orchestra was tuning up and a piper stood waiting to play at the foot of-the staircase. The perfect Highland setting, except that Janet's ' rightful one' was missing. Would he come? Catherine's heart lurched painfully as the first guests shook hands. Most of the men were in full Highland evening dress, but none of them wore the kilt as Iain did. Flora Daviot arrived from Arduaine House with her Naval contingent. Small and dark and glowing, she seemed to belong at Crane. 'The excitement's tremendous,' she declared. ' Everyone has heard about this between Fort William and John o' Groats!' 'I'll take you upstairs,' Catherine offered. 'We've managed to find a spare bedroom for the ladies' coats.' Flora hesitated. 'I think I'll hang on to my stole,' she decided, looking about her as if in search of someone. ' Cathie, has Iain come?' she asked. Catherine bit her lip. 'Would you blame him if he didn't?' she said. 'He intended to. It isn't like him to make a promise and then fail to keep it,' Flora said. Suddenly her lips firmed, making her look more determined than she seemed. 'He hasn't lost Crane yet, so why

shouldn't he come? I've been suggesting to him for years that he could make a better living out of the tourist trade than he does with those sheep of his, but he won't listen.' 'You mean—turn Crane into an hotel?' 'It would be simple enough, with people crying out for accommodation during the summer months and the skiing at his back door in the winter. I don't know why he doesn't do it. There's bound to be capital around somewhere,' Flora declared. 'We could use Dromore now, in fact, only he lives there. It's right at the head of the Pass and it would make an excellent hostel. What we need is a businessman to talk some sense into his head,' she concluded. ' Apparently I can't.' 'The reason might be that he hopes to come back here,' Catherine suggested. ' You should understand that, Flora. You'd be lost if you weren't living at Arduaine.' 'And I had to make it pay its way.' Flora smoothed her thick black hair. ' Oh, I understand, Cathie. I understand all right, but we don't always get the thing we want most, do we? We strive and battle for it, but it can elude us in the end. Like love,' she added unexpectedly. The orchestra struck up and one of the Naval officers came to claim her for the first dance. Warren put his hand on Catherine's bare shoulder. 'Cathie, this is mine,' he said. ' Do you realize we haven't danced together yet? I don't do it all that well, I guess. I've never found the time to become really proficient.'

They circled the floor, with the dark, disdainful faces looking down on them from the frames on the wall. You .don't belong, they seemed to say. You never will. 'We're off to a good start,' Warren decided. ' Almost everyone has arrived.' A dozen couples had followed them on to the floor. ' I hear you've been teaching Stacey her reels.' 'She was so eager to learn.' Almost everyone has arrived, Warren had said. It was true. The staircase was thronged with his guests, all the lights were lit and the yellow candles flickered in their silver candelabra in the room beyond. The murmur of voices and the sound of laughter drifted up to the rafters and out into the starry night. A night for Crane to remember. Truly the castle had been transformed. It had come alive. It had come into its own again, but its own was missing. When he came Catherine saw him immediately. He stood for a moment in the lower hall, looking up at the scene above him, a tall, distinguished-looking figure m his kilt, the silver buttons on his green velvet doublet reflecting back the light from the heavy chandelier above his head. When he went to pay his respects to his hostess he walked head and shoulders above the crowd, his face a mask, his eyes steady on Elizabeth Harper's as he shook hands. 'I'm sorry I'm a little late,' he apologized. ' I had trouble with the jeep coming down the glen.' Elizabeth excused him happily.

'You're not to worry about that,' she assured him. ' We know you have work to do and we're only too pleased you've come. Here's Stacey,' she added. ' She'll want to welcome you.' Catherine made way for a radiant Stacey, who seemed to be seeing Iain for the first time. 'Whoever invented kilts knew what he was doing!' she grinned breathlessly. ' They look magnificent and right—just right for a ball in a castle!' Iain looked down into her eager face. 'Perhaps that's what they were invented for,' he teased. ' Are you dancing?' 'I was,' Stacey admitted, ' but it was only with Warren, and he's gone to see to the champagne.' She stood waiting, her eyes aglow, her lips parted a little to show her tiny, spaced teeth. ' It's a quickstep,' she informed him invitingly. Iain put his arm about her, the smile still touching his eyes. He had glanced at Catherine for one brief moment and then away again. 'They make a lovely pair,' Elizabeth Harper sighed. ' I wish Stacey was ready to settle down.' Colin, who had been sitting on the stairs, claimed Catherine for the dance. 'She's like quicksilver, isn't she?' he commented, watching Stacey in her partner's arms. ' Who is he?' 'Iain MacAllister. The laird,' Catherine said harshly. ' Don't lose your heart to Stacey, Colin. They want her to marry him.'

'They're not at all alike, and he must be years older than she is.' 'Ten years, probably. It means nothing.' He looked at her with an odd sort of pity in his eyes. 'You've only known him since you came up here, I suppose,' he reflected. 'Yes.' It was only a month, yet she felt that she had known Iain all her life. Like Flora, she fitted in here. She could have remained happily in Glen Fionn for the rest of her days. The dance ended and they gathered into chattering groups until the piper took up his position in the gallery. Warren announced an eightsome reel. 'Catherine?' Iain said at her elbow. She turned to find him standing close behind her, looking down at her with pleasure in his eyes. As he took her hand to lead her on to the floor her heart felt as light as thistledown. While they stood waiting for the sets to be formed he glanced about him. 'I'm told you did most of the decorations,' he said. ' This is how Crane ought to look, and I suppose I have no right to let it die.' 'You can't part with it,' she said without realizing how intimate their conversation had become. ' It's where you belong.' He raised his eyes to the row of unsmiling faces on the wall above them.

'It isn't the first time Crane has been in difficulties,' he mused. ' That old marauder up there with the claymore in his hand fought for it while it was burning about his ears after the "forty-five ". It was left a shell and he didn't return to it for sixteen years. Then he came back from France, pardoned, and with the money to restore it. He had married a rich Frenchwoman and his troubles were over.' His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ' I wonder if it was the only solution,' he added, 'Surely not.'.,, Catherine's hand was still in his, waiting for the reel to begin. ' But he may have been willing to sacrifice everything else for Crane. In a way, I can understand that,' she added quietly. His fingers tightened over hers as the piper tuned in. 'I believe you can,' he said. The reel was her favourite and she danced well. Iain led her through it without speaking. He must have danced like this many times under Crane's high rafters and tonight would be almost a repetition of his coming-of-age party, only this time he was a guest under his own roof and Stacey was the birthday girl. The reel ended far too soon. The pipe music and the swirling kilts were still, but the essence of their magic lingered. The guests filed in to supper in a laughing, chattering throng. Warren proposed his sister's health and happiness, holding his glass high, and, somehow, Iain was standing by Stacey's side. She looked up at him with a radiant smile, forgetful of all their former disagreement. Her mother had been determined to have him there and now Stacey was glad. Catherine's heart felt like lead, and when she looked at Iain his face was grey. Surely there wasn't going to be another announcement, she

thought desperately—not yet. Iain couldn't just dance with Stacey once or twice and then propose to her. It was unthinkable, completely out of character for this man who had stirred her pity and claimed her understanding if not her love. She moved back into the throng of guests, helping to pass plates and napkins at the end of the long table while Stacey held the centre of the floor. Eventually Janet came to relieve her. 'Off you go and enjoy yourself,' she ordered. ' I'll see to this. You haven't taken a bite to eat yet.' She looked up, thrusting an empty plate into the first pair of male hands. ' Get Cathie something to eat,' she ordered. ' She's been looking after everybody but herself.' Iain carried the plate down the length of the table while Catherine chose what she wanted, her hands not quite steady as she reached to take it from him. 'Where do you want to sit?' he asked without relinquishing it. ' I'll bring you some champagne.' She found an empty table in the conservatory looking down through the pines towards the loch. It was an enchanted world out there, with starlight glittering on the frosted drive and a great, clear moon above the glen. Her heart contracted at the sight of it. How lucky Stacey was; lucky in everything! Iain put a champagne glass down in front of her. 'I didn't see you drink Harper's toast,' he said. ' You were too busy. Drink it now while I find another chair.' She raised the sparkling liquid to her lips. 'To Stacey,' she said.

'For a girl straight over from Canada she's certainly adapting herself very well to the Highland scene,' Iain observed, setting his chair alongside her own. ' I hadn't much use for Stacey when I first met her, but I suppose I was bitter then—about Crane. Now I know that I have no right to let it die. Coming here tonight, seeing it like this, has convinced me beyond any shadow of a doubt. Houses like Crane go on. They are personalities in themselves. Whatever we chose to do about it, we can't alter the facts. They make their demands and we have to serve them. How long are you going to be here, Cathie?' She looked down at her half empty plate. 'That will depend on Warren,' she said. ' He won't be here all the time.' 'You'll go to Canada with him?' She shook her head. 'I don't think so. Not yet, anyway.' He got up to open the long glass door leading to the terrace at the side of the house. 'It's warm in here,' he remarked almost harshly. 'Eventually,' she mused, as if continuing her own private train of thought, ' I suppose I'll go back to Edinburgh and all this will be no more than a dream. It's been a wonderful experience.' Her eyes fastened on the distant shimmer of loch water beyond the pines. ' Something I shall never forget. This isn't the sort of life I'm used to, Iain. I'm a working girl and before I came to Glen Fionn I was happy enough in Edinburgh.' Her voice faltered. 'Perhaps I should never have come,' she added wistfully. ' If one never knows how full life can be one could be content with less.'

His dark brows drew together in a frown. 'Contentment isn't enough,' he said. ' One needs fulfilment.' They spoke about the coming winter then, and Flora's hopes for Arduaine. 'She's been mapping out a tremendous campaign over in Glen Larig.' When he smiled all the shadows fled from his eyes. ' Nobody could help admiring Flora. She's a born organizer. All summer she's been thinking about her new ski-lift and she wants to extend it up to the Pass. At present it goes through Glen Struan and on up to Aros, but the slopes are better on the other side. The way you went with Stacey,' he reminded her. 'I bawled you out that day because you really were in danger, but in winter when there's several feet of snow things are different. The bogs are frozen solid then and there's very little fear of an accident.' They lingered beside the open window, breathing in the keen, fresh air until a movement behind them made Catherine turn. Warren was standing framed in the dining-room doorway looking stiff and resentful. 'I wondered where you'd got to, Cathie,' he said without acknowledging her companion. ' We're dancing again.' Iain closed the window. 'I haven't quite finished my supper,' Catherine pointed out. ' Can I have a minute or two longer?' 'Sure,' her employer agreed. ' Go ahead.' He pulled forward an extra chair. ' I'll wait.' 'Can I bring you something to drink?' Iain asked automatically.

'I can manage that for myself, thanks.' Warren's tone was frankly antagonistic. ' While you've got a minute to spare, though, we may as well get down to brass tacks. I've made up my mind about Crane. I intend to buy.' For one explosive moment Iain seemed unable to answer him. His jaw hardened and all the colour drained out of his facie. His eyes, when he looked round at the other man, were as grey and cold as flint. 'Six months was the provisional time, either way,' he said. ' There are still four months to go.' Warren kept his temper with an effort. 'Surely you don't think you're going to raise the money to hold Crane in four months,' he said bluntly. ' Be realistic, man!' Iain straightened to his full, commanding height. 'I'm attempting your sort of realism,' he said. ' Gradually.' With a swift glance in Catherine's direction he had gone. 'How could you do that to him?' she heard herself saying. ' How could you put him in such an invidious position? He was your guest.' Warren flushed. He was still angry. 'You would hardly think so,' he growled. ' Offering to bring me some of my own champagne.' 'I think that was a mistake.' Catherine's tone was hard. ' It was something that—came natural to him. The last occasion of this sort was his own coming-of-age.'

'Oh, yes, I know!' Warren fumed. ' He's the laird. He still is and he can't forget it. He still imagines himself master in his own house and he can't stop acting the part. I've no time for these fellows who lean so heavily on the past. Why don't they look to the future and see what's best for them?' 'I think Iain does, but you can't honestly expect him to give up four hundred years of past history without a struggle.' He stared down at her. 'You're like him,' he said. 'Damnably like him! You'd get on well together at Crane.' She drew back as if he had struck her a blow across the heart. 'There's no question of that,' she whispered. ' I have nothing to offer him.'

CHAPTER VII The snow came two weeks before Christmas. It fell steadily throughout the night and for the next two days until all the hills were covered. Above the glens the great peaks reared up, with Ben Macdhui topping them all in regal splendour, his rugged old head smooth and white against a sky of incredible blue. Beyond the pines and as far as they could see from the castle windows the loch lay, still and placid, reflecting hill upon hill in its mirror-smooth surface. The wind which had howled down the glen for two days and two nights had spent itself and the whole world seemed to rest. There was no movement, no cry of bird or beast or even a stag roaring in the distance. Tree and hill and loch were all cradled in the same vast peace. Catherine had seen nothing but a distant glimpse of Iain in all these weeks, although she had heard of him from time to time. He had lost the small amount of help he had at Dromore, Duncan told her. His shepherd was ' away sick'. ' The poor man,' Duncan explained, ' isn't fit for the hill these days. He's old. Older than me. Seventy-six, if he's a day, and him with the lumbago all his life!' It wasn't Catherine's place to suggest that Duncan might be spared to help out at Dromore, and Warren didn't seem to think it necessary. He had travelled a lot during those weeks—to Canada and the Continent—but he had left plenty of work behind to keep her busy. Because of this, Stacey had spent a good deal of her time at Arduaine House, helping Flora to prepare for the Christmas rash. If she met Iain on these occasions, she didn't say so. In fact, she seemed more than content with Flora's companionship and the busier life in the neighbouring glen. There was a weekly dance at Inverlarig, in the village hall, and the odd ceilidh at outlying farms. Once or twice Catherine had gone with her to these impromptu functions, but

usually Stacey went on her own, staying at Arduaine overnight and riding back across {he Pass the following morning. The ponies were the obvious bond between her and Flora. She groomed and fed and exercised them while she was there and her help must have been invaluable to anyone sis busy as Flora. 'Flora's the most energetic person I've ever known,' she remarked once. ' She works and works and doesn't seem to think about herself at all. Cathie, I wonder why she never got married?' 'Because the right person didn't ask her, I should think.' 'Do you mean Iain?' Stacey asked. ' I don't think she thinks about him now. Not in that way. One of the Naval officers—Bob Kerr—is very fond of her.' That was before Stacey went to Edinburgh. She went with Warren for three days to do her Christmas shopping. When she came back she told Catherine that she had met Colin. 'I went to the University and asked to see him,' she explained without hesitation. ' I've met your mother and father, Cathie. Colin took me home.' 'Did—Warren go?' Catherine was forced to ask. 'No. He had a business appointment. He had to meet someone at Turnhouse off a plane and give them lunch. Warren is too highpressured for words!' Mrs Harper and Janet had spent most of their time in the castle preparing for Christmas. They had an ideal working arrangement. Janet never presumed on their childhood friendship; she kept ' her place' with a dignity which Elizabeth Harper was quick to respect, and if confidences passed between them they were never repeated.

Catherine and.. Janet were firm admirers one of the other, but there it remained. They were both employed by the Harpers and owed them a certain amount of allegiance no matter where else their sympathies might He. On the day the snow began to fall Stacey was agog with excitement. She had been waiting for this for a very long time. An expert skier, she hoped for employment at Arduaine, although Flora had already booked a Swiss instructor to see her through the season. Catherine, who had never been on skis before, felt completely at a loss. 'Warren will show you how,' Stacey suggested. ' He's really good, and he's got the patience of Job. I tend to fly off the handlebars if people aren't quick enough on the uptake.' Warren returned from Edinburgh the following Friday, complaining bitterly about the road conditions which he had encountered after he had left Perth. 'This is Scotland,' he was reminded by his mother. 'One has to take the rough with the smooth. Stacey and Cathie can't wait to go skiing.' Stacey had bought new skis when she was in Edinburgh, but Catherine understood she could hire them at Arduaine. Warren led her out to the hall. 'Your Christmas present!' he said, pointing to the bright red-tipped skis strapped on to the roof of his car beside his own. ' I thought you'd like them, and Stacey helped me to get the right size.' Catherine flushed. 'I wish you wouldn't buy me these expensive things,' she protested hastily to hide her sudden concision. ' It's kind of you, Warren, but

you must let me pay for them. I can easily afford to, and my native caution won't be offended now that the snow is here!' She tried to laugh, and he put his arm about her. 'Aw, shucks, Cathie! why don't you let me give you things?' he said amiably. ' You work hard enough for them while I'm away.' 'For which you pay me a most generous salary,' she reminded him. 'Aw, let's forget it, shall we?' he pleaded, thrusting the shiny aluminium ski-sticks into her hand. ' We shouldn't be haggling over a trifle like this, you know.' They drove across to Glen Larig the following morning, going over the Pass and down the other side without meeting a single soul. Catherine strained her eyes, gazing up at the ridge for any sign of life, but Dromore looked deserted. In the clear, cold air she would have seen smoke if there had been any issuing from even one of the lodge's many chimneys, but there was nothing. Yet they came upon penned sheep close under the ridge, with paw and footmarks leading back towards the house, so whatever else Iain did with his time he took no risks with his lambing ewes. They were his insurance for the future, whatever happened to Crane. Flora was almost too busy to talk to them. The sudden snowfall had brought the weekend skiers out in their hundreds and every room, every nook and cranny Arduaine could boast was full. She had boiled eggs by the dozen, making up packed lunches, and still the diningroom was full. She refused their proffered help, however. 'Off you go,' she commanded. ' Make the most of the light and you can help wash dishes later on, if you like.' 'If I'm able to stand!' Catherine laughed.

She was really beginning to enjoy this new adventure. In a pair of tan-coloured ski-pants borrowed from Stacey and her own blue thickknit over a couple of sweaters, she was well enough equipped to withstand the cold. This wasn't Switzerland, but the sun was shining and as they went farther up it would get warmer. They were at the foot of the ski-tow when they met Iain. Stacey saw him first. 'There's the laird!' she said in her pert way. ' I wouldn't be surprised if he's earning himself an honest dollar as an instructor. Flora says he's an expert.' Iain came down the slope towards them. In his black anorak and black vorlages he stood out among the other more gaudily-attired men idling at the end of the run. He looked, in fact, as if he meant business. 'I'm marking the trail,' he said to Warren. ' Are you going to follow down?' 'Cathie can't ski,' Warren said abruptly. ' I'm taking her across to the nursery slopes.' 'I'm the absolute beginner!' Catherine's heart was pounding with more than the unaccustomed exercise. ' I don't know the first thing about this.' Warren put a ready arm about her waist. 'Not to worry,' he said with confidence. ' You'll learn. There's really nothing to it once you know how.' Iain drew on his ski-mitts. 'I'll get a start, then, if nobody's coming up,' he said.

Catherine watched the slim black figure hitching itself on to the tow, but Iain didn't look back. He was doing a job of work, helping Flora where he could. He had no time to stand with them in idle conversation. Stacey followed him with one of the Naval officers from Arduaine. Warren was thorough and extremely patient. He spent the whole morning on the nursery slopes, helping her to her feet when, inevitably, she fell, encouraging her when she came near to despair. 'I'll never do it!' she wailed. ' The wretched skis just slip from under me!' 'Keep your sticks well forward.' He was even patient when he had to repeat an instruction. ' You tend to dig 'em in and then you shoot off—on your back!' 'It's no use! I know it isn't -' He caught her in his arms at the end of her unsteady descent, kissing her with a fine disregard for any onlooker. They had come down behind a little wood and he supposed they were unobserved. 'Marry me, Cathie,' he demanded. ' It's in our stars!' 'It's what you want,' she said, putting her wet, gloved hands against his chest. ' You always get what you want—you and Stacey.' He kissed her again without answering as a flying missile in red vorlages swept down from the hill above them. It was Stacey. She had seen them from the crest of the last run down. 'That was super!' she exclaimed, drawing up with an expert twist of her skis, her eyes widening as she saw Catherine in her brother's arms. ' Are you two engaged?'

Stacey's remarks generally came straight out of the blue like this, and Warren laughed. 'I'm hoping so!' he said. Stacey shot off, pleased with what she had heard. An engagement in the family would be fun. A Christmas engagement, too! Warren bent to unfasten Catherine's skis. 'Warren,' she said nervously, ' you mustn't count on this—what Stacey said just now. Nothing has changed. I can't promise to marry you.' 'You'll come round to it,' he predicted confidently. ' People don't wait for months nowadays, Cathie, before making up their minds.' 'I'm not going to be rushed,' she protested. ' Warren, try to understand. I couldn't marry you, ever, unless I was in love with you.' 'I got the message some time ago,' he said somewhat abruptly. ' At Stacey's party. You wouldn't be in love with anyone else, by any chance?' His question caught her completely unawares. She lifted her clear grey eyes to his and he knew the truth. 'MacAllister?' he said. ' Cathie, you can't be in love with him. He's got nothing to offer you. All he cares about is Crane.' 'I know that,' she said bleakly. ' He has never pretended otherwise. But if he was twice as poor, Warren, it would be just the same.' They walked on in silence, the untrodden snow crunching beneath their heavy boots.

'You'll forget about him,' he said at last. ' He may not be here for ever.' She caught her breath. 'That wouldn't make it any easier,' she told him. 'I can't believe you mean this,' he said stubbornly. ' You'll change your mind, or have it changed for you. I'm not going to rush you. I'll promise you that, at least. I can wait,' he repeated. Stacey, however, was determined to rush things. Borne on the wings of her skis, she reached Arduaine an hour before they did. 'Flora, you'll never guess!' she cried. ' We're going to have an engagement in the family. Isn't it just the greatest surprise? We can have it at Christmas and it'll be something special. Mom's just going to be too excited when she hears. She always did say it was time she had some respectable in-laws!' Flora turned from the kitchen stove, her cheeks flushed with her exertions. 'Begin at the beginning, Stacey,' she laughed. ' Who's going to marry whom?' 'I've just told you—or didn't I?' Stacey pulled off her ski-cap, shaking her long fair hair over her shoulders. ' Warren and Cathie. Isn't it just the nicest thing you could imagine?' Flora stood absolutely still, her eyes fixed on her visitor as Stacey struggled with the fastening of her boots. The colour remained in her face, but there was a look of shock in her eyes.

'When did this happen?' she asked when she had found her voice again. ' They didn't seem at all excited when they were here a couple of hours ago.' 'It hadn't happened then.' Stacey grinned. ' It's absolutely Stop Press. I've just banged into them up there at the Badger's Wood. It was all so new that Cathie was still at the protesting stage, but I've known for weeks Warren was going to ask her. He spent half his time in Edinburgh mooning over engagement rings!' 'Then it must be true,' Flora said. 'True, but not official. Not yet,' Stacey decided. ' So don't say a word, will you? Cathie might want to tell you herself.' Flora went on preparing the soup she was making for the skiers' return without really concentrating on what she was doing. She hadn't expected this. It was something she had thought about, of course, but she had thrust it aside. And now—well, Stacey said it was true. She worked her way through the remainder of the day and when the supper things were cleared away she found herself going hot-foot to Dromore. It was a lovely, moonlit night and the climb through the silent glen and up to the Pass was the invigorating exercise she needed after a full day in the kitchen. Her guests would sing themselves hoarse till midnight and she would be home long before then. Iain hadn't put in an appearance at Arduaine when the light had failed, so she supposed he had gone straight home. She hadn't seen anything of Warren and Cathie, either. The crisp, practically untrodden snow made heavy going of the climb, but she knew every step of the way. Just as Iain did, she

thought, remembering how often he had convoyed her home as a boy. If it hadn't been for Pamela ... She closed her eyes, blotting out the memory of pain and disillusionment which was only now beginning to fade, after all these years. At the head of the Pass she stopped for breath, looking down towards Crane. Lights twinkled in an upstairs room, homely and kind, and suddenly she couldn't look at them any more. This was how Crane should always be, how she could have kept it if Iain had returned her love. She stood in the snow re-living the happy years when their two families had been very close, recalling the hopes and the cherished desires which had withered even as she had tried to grasp them. A hard, constricting lump thrust upwards into her throat. Surely it couldn't happen a second time! Dromore lay hidden from sight beneath the ridge, but she had no need of the moon to show her the way. She walked on, hearing the bleating of sheep far beneath her and the sudden, warning bark of a dog nearer at hand. A curl of smoke rose from one of the end chimneys as she neared the house, as if someone had just replenished a dying fire. She went to the door and tried it. It wasn't locked. 'I'll be through in a minute, Duncan.' The voice came from the kitchen, where a tap was running. Iain's voice, strong and assured. ' Make yourself comfortable beside the fire.' Flora crossed to the communicating door, looking in at him. He still wore the black vorlages and heavy sweater he had worn all day. Only the anorak was missing. In the light of the paraffin lamp on the windowsill above the sink he looked tired and drawn. 'It isn't Duncan,' she said.

He turned, surprised, searching for a towel to dry his hands. She passed it to him with an oddly tender smile. 'I was expecting Duncan,' he explained. ' He promised to come up and lend a hand in his spare time. I've been stacking some peat inside,' he added, nodding to the methodically built pile in the corner. ' It pays to be prepared.' 'You think we'll have more snow?' 'Sure to.' He didn't consider it odd that she had walked over the Pass. She had done it before. ' Once it starts we generally get more.' He didn't ask her why she had come, although his eyes were vaguely questioning. 'Will you have a cup of tea?' he offered. ' Or something stronger to keep out the cold?' 'Let me do it.' She felt in need of the familiar task. ' I came to thank you for marking out the trail.' He looked at her, half smiling. 'It could have waited till tomorrow, Flora.' 'Yes, I suppose it could.' She filled the kettle and put it on to boil. ' I—fancied the walk and I'm always sure of a cuppa when I get here.' 'And always welcome,' he said with a kindliness that pierced her through and through. When she had infused the tea he carried it through to the hall. It was meticulously tidy, and Flora noticed the change with drawn brows.

'Morag seems to be turning over a new leaf,' she observed. ' Is she managing to come every day now?' 'Not regularly,' he said, pouring out the tea. ' She comes when she can. I was the untidy one.' His smile was one-sided and reminiscent. ' It gave Cathie Roy quite a shock to see how I lived.' 'Cathie?' She repeated the name slowly. ' Was that when she first came, or has she been here since?' 'I don't encourage visitors,' he said, handing her her cup and saucer. 'You ought to, you know.' It was the old bone of contention between them. 'You needn't live like a hermit. If you had a resident housekeeper it would solve all your problems and you'd have more leisure into the bargain.' 'Who are you to talk about leisure?' he smiled. ' You work harder than anyone else I know.' He passed her a biscuit. ' Neither of us thinks much of leisure, Flora, and you know it. Even in the old days there was plenty to do. Arduaine and Crane took up most of our time.' 'Arduaine still does, as far as I'm concerned,' Flora answered ruefully. ' Sometimes I think I'm going to be an old, old woman full of wrinkles before I have any time to spare!' 'To do what?' 'All the things I've ever wanted to do.' 'Such as?' She found herself without an answer. What did she really want to do, when all came to all, but just what she was doing now, sitting here

with Iain MacAllister after a busy day with the warmth of a peat fire hedging them round? 'It's funny,' she mused. ' One imagines one wants the world to hold in one's hands when quite often the valued thing is already there. If we took time to look around us at the blessings we have we might be more content.' 'Surely you didn't walk all the way over the Pass to read me a sermon,' he challenged. 'No.' She felt the colour rising in her cheeks. Why had she come? Was it to tell him in case he shouldn't hear in time that .Cathie Roy was about to become engaged to someone else? It couldn't matter to Iain. Surely it couldn't matter! ' Being content sounds rather dull, as Stacey would say.' He bent to the peat glow to light his pipe with the paper spill he had made. 'They're growing close to Crane,' he said harshly. ' They're bringing it to life again, but I can't let it go to an absentee landlord.' 'Would it—hurt less if Warren Harper decided to live here all the time?' she asked. He got to his feet, striding across the room. 'You don't measure hurt, Flora,' he said. ' More or less is all the same. I've never wanted to let Crane go. I was brought up with the conviction that I belonged here, that a MacAllister would be living down there in the castle long after I was dead. I saw myself as a link in a chain—a golden chain, perhaps.' His mouth twisted. ' It all seemed fixed—destined. It was my birthright, something to be picked

up and carried, like a torch, until it was passed on to a son of my own.' 'Warren Harper is going to marry Cathie Roy.' She said it just like that, baldly, blurting it out because she couldn't hold it any more, and for a long time he stood with his back to her, looking out through the window at the snow. When he turned there was nothing in his face to tell her what he thought. 'It could make a difference,' he said quite steadily. ' I understood he was going to leave his mother here and go back to Canada.' 'It appears he has enough money to do as lie likes,' she said unsteadily. ' I've heard him talking of raising cattle—a pedigree herd like the man Hobbs is doing in the Great Glen. There's money in it, if you have the money to spare in the first place.' He drew silently on his pipe, not asking her again why she had come. 'I'll see you back across the Pass,' he volunteered when Duncan failed to put in an appearance by nine o'clock. ' We'll take the jeep.' She stood looking at him for a long moment. The impulse was there to fling her arms about his neck, to tell him, without shame, that she loved him, but Flora Daviot didn't do these things. She had stood, dumb with misery, while her greatest friend betrayed him, and even afterwards she hadn't been able to tell him she was sorry. She had tried to show him her sympathy in other ways, and if he had understood she was glad.

CHAPTER VIII Two days later Catherine met Iain on the glen road. She had twisted her knee skiing and was taking a short walk along the lochside when she saw him driving up from the direction of the clachan in the jeep. As always, when they met unexpectedly, her heart sought to betray her, beating madly in her breast like some caged thing longing to be free, and for a moment she thought that he was about to pass her without a word. He pulled into one of the passing bays which served to make the road safer. 'I picked these up in the post-office,' he told her, producing a roll of magazines which had come by, post. ' Apparently they were overlooked this morning. They're for Mrs Harper.' His voice had sounded stiff and his eyes, when he looked at her, were as grey and remote as the overcast sky above their heads. Catherine felt the immediate chill like a knife thrust into her flesh. 'I heard her asking Stacey about them,' she said. ' She has them sent over from Canada. Thanks for bringing them up.' They looked at each other in silence. 'I—thought I'd like a walk,' she managed at last. ' The others are over at Glen Larig, but I hurt my knee yesterday and Warren thought I should rest it for a day.' 'Don't walk too far,' he advised abruptly, letting in his clutch. ' We're going to have more snow.' She wanted to detain him, to stand there talking for a moment or two longer.

'I've been busy typing all morning,' she said, ' and this was one way of getting some exercise.' 'You won't be bound to the treadmill much longer,' he observed dryly. 'It's more than a week to Christmas,' she reminded; him. 'I wasn't thinking about Christmas.' He took his foot off the clutch and lit a cigarette. ' You'll be here over the holidays, I suppose.' 'I ought to go home.' She hesitated. ' But there's nothing I would like better than to bring in the New Year in the glen. Janet has been briefing everybody,' she ran on. ' The whole glen keeps open house, I understand.' She couldn't invite him to Crane, of course. That would be up to Warren, but she could let him see how welcome he would be if he cared to come. 'When I first came to Glen Fionn I imagined that I had never seen anything more lonely,' she confessed, ' but now I've discovered how wrong that is. The glen's full of kindness provided one looks for it in the right places.' He refused to meet her smile. 'You've been accepted,' he said stonily. ' Probably thanks to Janet. She's greatly respected in Glen Fionn, and, I suspect, a little feared.' 'She's very loyal to you—and Crane.' 'Yes, I realize that.' He looked straight at her. ' Janet and you are alike in many ways,' he said. ' I know you're fond of Crane and I hope you're going to be happy there. You—were almost made for it.'

She drew back. 'I—why are you saying this?' she asked. 'You're going to marry Harper, I understand.' 'No!' she gasped. ' Nothing's settled. Who told you?' 'It appears to be common gossip.' His narrowed eyes dismissed her. ' I think Stacey was the first to spread the glad news.' He re-started the engine. 'Iain,' she found herself pleading, ' I didn't come here with that intention. That's what you think, though, isn't it? You think I came with the idea of—marrying Crane. But I'm not desperately in love with Warren, as you seem to think.' 'No?' He laughed. ' Women appear to be all alike in that respect. A little loving is enough.' 'How can you say such a thing -' The jeep began to move, slowly, at a snail's pace. 'Congratulate Harper for me,' he said. 'Please,' she argued, ' you must listen -' There was a smouldering flame in his eyes when he looked round at her. 'I have listened,' he said. ' I've heard how you pity me and wish you could help. I've seen you trying, up at Dromore, but I don't need any woman's help. I never shall.'

'I'm not in love with Warren,' she cried. ' I never led him to believe that I was.' He stared at her and then he laughed. 'But you'll marry him, just the same.' His voice was like splintering ice. ' You love Crane—you've said so a dozen times—and you hate the thought of returning to Edinburgh—after all this.' 'You're not giving me a chance,' she cried, limping along beside the jeep as he pulled out on to the road. 'Harper's done that,' he flung at her. ' Take it, Cathie. You'll be mad not to.' She was left gazing after him, seeing the tracks the jeep made in the snow running away from her while her heart seemed to crumble into little pieces and the glen grew cold and dark. How far she walked after that she didn't know. She found herself beyond the castle gates, climbing towards the Pass. Then, because Dromore lay in that direction, she took the narrow path along the burn, limping over her ankles in soft, untrodden snow. In the waiting silence all around her the little noises of the glen were magnified a thousandfold: the hurried flight of a blackbird into the pines; the whisper of the hidden burn under its mantle of snow; the furtive retreat of an otter above a pool. They were the sounds she had grown to know and love, but they offered her little comfort. She stood beside the frozen waterfall, seeing its surface encased in ice and listening to the heavy dripping of the water behind the rocks. It fell like hidden tears dropping slowly in the secret places of the heart. It was almost dark by the time she reached the shore road again and at once she recognized the castle car coming towards her. The brakes were applied and Warren jumped out.

'For goodness' sake, Cathie,' he cried, ' where have you been? Do you know what time it is?' She gazed at him almost as if she didn't recognize him. He was still in his vorlages and ski-boots, and he looked anxious behind his anger. 'I'm sorry.' Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears. ' I must have walked farther than I realized. I came down beside the burn and the snow was very deep.' 'Get in.' He opened the car door. ' We had no idea where you had gone. Mother said you only went out for half an hour.' He looked down at her in some concern. ' I understood you were going to rest.' 'I'm sorry,' she repeated. 'I didn't mean to stay away so long.' She realized how late it was. The light had all gone and only the snow made it seem light. ' I meant to walk the other way, towards the village, but— but I changed my mind.' Her voice wavered before the memory of her meeting with Iain down there beside the loch and she couldn't look at Warren. His anxiety and care for her hurt too much in the face of Iain's obvious indifference. 'All right,' Warren said gently. ' Don't apologize. We just got anxious when you didn't turn up by tea time.' Before they reached the castle snow was falling, slanting down towards them to lie in a white film against the windscreen. Warren switched on the electric wipers, cleaving two clear semi-circles on the glass through which they could see. 'Snow for Christmas with a vengeance!' he said. ' More skiing, Cathie! We'll make an expert of you yet!'

She watched the fresh snowflakes falling rapidly on the road ahead of them, obliterating the tracks the jeep had made on its return journey to Dromore. That's how Iain wants it, she thought. He wants to live his own life cut off from everything here in the glen. lie's bitter and hard and unforgiving. There's nothing vulnerable about him. If she was trying to harden her heart against him it was a poor attempt. Nothing she could say, no argument she put forward, would ever alter the fact that she loved him. Dominant, arrogant, perhaps, unforgiving, he would go his way and she hers. There had been nothing between them which she could really hold on to except her own pathetic, one-sided love. The approach to Crane blurred suddenly before her eyes. She knew so well how he felt about his home, but that was all she knew. The man himself was an enigma. 'What about Christmas?' Warren asked. 'I hope you're going to stay with us over the holidays. I know I ought to offer you a vacation, but we'd like to have you with us. Mother's talking about another party. She feels Stacey's was a great success.' 'I'd like to stay.' It was the second time he had asked her. ' But I can't. Let me get away, Warren. Let me think.' She steadied her voice with an effort. ' My people will expect me to go home and—and I think I must.' She had made her decision somewhere up there in the narrow glen below the waterfall. He drove the car round the end of the castle to the garage without stopping to let her down. They sat gazing at the bare area of whitewashed wall. 'You'll come back,' he said at last. ' You'll promise me that, Cathie?'

'I don't know.' Her hands were tightly clasped. 'It must sound terribly ungrateful. You've been so kind.' He put his arm along the back of her seat, but he didn't touch her. 'You'll see things clearer in Edinburgh,' he predicted. ' Take your holiday and come back whenever you're ready. I need you.' She found no words with which to, answer him. Unshed tears pressed against her eyes; the tears of youth, of self-pity and frustration, the angry tears of humiliation and defeat. The words 'I need you' splintered in her brain, increasing her hurt. Warren needed her, but Iain needed nobody. He had gone out of his way to prove it to her down there beside the loch. 'Stacey wants Colin to come up again,' Warren said. getting out of the car. ' She met him last week in Edinburgh.' 'Yes, she told me.' He slammed the car door. 'He'll come after New Year, before he goes back to the University.' 'You're very kind.' She kept repeating the same thing. They had all been kind to her, Warren and his mother and Stacey, and she was repaying them in a peculiar coin by running away. Was that what she was really doing? Running away from everything, from life and experience and kindness, turning her back on affection and friendship because she had been hurt by love?

'I'll come back, Warren,' she said, ' but let me go home for Christmas. It's expected of me.' She supposed it was. Her mother demanded these things, looking on them as a right, and she did want to go. Her father had always tried to make Christmas rather special for them, rousing himself from his preoccupation with his job to book theatre seats and arrange a restaurant meal to relieve the fatigue of family cooking on at least one evening during the festive season. The pull of home was very strong in her and she knew how disappointed her mother would be if Colin suddenly chose to come to Crane. Apparently he hadn't. He would come after New Year because he had enjoyed himself so much the last time and because Stacey had asked him. Stacey and Colin! She hadn't thought of them before, but now she wondered if her brother might be facing the game sort of heartache as she was if he returned to the glen. Volatile, headstrong, lovable in many ways, Stacey had undoubtedly attracted the quiet, studious boy who had come among them as her brother's guest, but what would happen to Colin if he fell in love with Stacey? He had never had a regular girl friend. All his time had been given to his studies, and if he did fall in love it would be wholeheartedly. Yet how could she possibly shield him from an experience which could be the most wonderful and rewarding thing in life? He was twenty-three. In six months' time he would graduate and all the world would be before him. A cold little fear ran through her as she walked beside Warren towards the castle. Supposing Stacey were to spoil all that? To anyone so sensitive as Colin an unhappy love affair could be disastrous.

'I'll run you through to Edinburgh,' Warren offered. ' When do you want to go?' 'Christmas Eve would do, unless you want to be here, at Crane.' 'We can start out early.' He looked down at her as if he were about to add something more, and then he seemed to think better of the impulse and asked instead: 'Do I need to contact the agency to get you back again?' She shook her head. 'Not unless you're going away for weeks.' 'I won't do that,' he said. ' This is part of my own vacation, the first I've taken in years. If it doesn't look like it because I have to dash off to Europe every now and then,' he added with a wry smile, 'you'll have to accept my word for it. Maybe I can't stop, Cathie. Maybe it's the way I'm made. My mother's like that, too—she has to work, to be on the go all the time, planning new ventures, new excitements. She's the complete business woman, whether from choice or necessity I wouldn't know.' 'Necessity could have forced her choice in the first place,' Catherine said. '' She told me once that she could have been the completely domesticated type, the "home bird" she called it.' 'She never had the chance. She had to go out and fight in a tough business world for what she wanted. It was for me and Stacey, and I can't forget it.' He pushed the heavy, studded door back on its hinges. 'She deserves a little rest now,' Catherine said huskily.

Elizabeth Harper's idea of a rest was merely a change of activity, however. Or so it seemed during the next few days. She had plunged into the social life of the glen and was visiting in cottages where Janet admittedly believed she would never have been accepted. It had been difficult at first, because the young laird still held their allegiance, but Janet smoothed the way for her. The fact that she was a Scot helped a great deal, making her generosity seem less like charity. Where there was sickness she was swiftly on the doorstep, travelling miles to a lonely croft or a distant farm among the hills. She carried with her a covered basket laden with chicken and conserves of every kind, adding home-baked scones and oat-cakes from Janet's kitchen, where there was always plenty to spare. 'They won't accept money,' Janet had warned. ' They'd take it as an insult—most of them.' It was the same sort of stubborn independence of which Iain himself was guilty, although Mrs Harper didn't attempt to go to Dromore. 'We'll ask him for Christmas Day,' she decided as she helped Catherine to decorate the hall. ' Janet says Morag MacFee won't go up to Dromore over title holiday period. Her grandchildren come from Fort William and she makes a great to-do of celebrating.' They were in the minstrels' gallery, hanging garlands. The floor behind them was piled high with holly gathered on the estate and a fir tree from the Sma' Glen stood in a gay scarlet tub at the foot of the staircase. Stacey had been decorating it all morning, growing restless occasionally, but coming back to her task again whenever a fresh parcel arrived. They had decided not to open any of their gifts until Christmas morning, but many a sly peep was taken when Mrs Harper's back was turned. 'Stacey has no patience, that's the trouble,' Elizabeth said. ' Look at these. She's made about three when we need a dozen.' She held up a

half-completed circle of holly. ' Do you think you could find some more, Cathie, preferably with berries?' she asked. 'That lovely variegated stuff looks best against the dark wood, doesn't it? It's not often you see variegated holly with berries. This seems to be a good year for everything.' Catherine came down from the kitchen steps to do her bidding. 'Wrap up well,' Elizabeth cautioned. ' We don't want you catching cold.' Most of the holly grew on the edge of the estate near the moss-grown boundary wall, but she could reach it through the grounds. Pulling on an anorak and stout boots, she took a walking stick with her to break a path through the undergrowth. The snow had fallen through the pines, making tufted white cushions of the bramble bushes growing beneath them and dry twigs crackled under her tread. The wood enveloped her in a soft twilight of muted sound and a robin followed her most of the way. His vivid red breast matched the holly berries as she pulled down the branches, but there was more than enough for them both. When she had gathered an armful she added some tiny ferns from the sheltered side of the wall to her collection and thought about her return. The wall separated her from the glen road and it might be easier for her to go back that way. It would certainly be quicker than the way she had come, and the wall wasn't so very high. Having made her decision she threshed a small clearing in the tangle of dead bracken and brambles, using her stick vigorously to protect her legs. Then, tossing the holly over the wall ahead of her, she found a foothold and began to climb.

The wall certainly wasn't high on the inside, but she had calculated without the ditch which separated her from the road. It was narrow, but it was deep and full of snow. Frustrated and disappointed, she surveyed her treasure lying full in the middle of the road and then she became aware of the man striding towards her down the hill. 'Iain!' she said automatically. 'I heard the commotion in the wood and wondered what was happening,' he explained, taking in the situation at a glance. ' Had you forgotten about the ditch?' 'Yes.' Her heart was fluttering like a captive bird. ' It makes an effective barrier, doesn't it?' He looked down at the holly for a moment. 'Are you going to jump?' he asked. 'Should I?' She surveyed the ditch with concern. ' If I fell in there I'd disappear.' 'It's for you to decide,' he said. ' I can always pass your spoils back to you.' He began to gather up the holly, laying it at the side of the road while he waited for her to make up her mind. Her heart was still racing. Meeting him unexpectedly in this way had completely disconcerted her. 'I'll help you,' he offered briefly. ' If you want to jump.' 'It's a long way back through the wood.'

'Yes,' he agreed. She braced herself to make the effort. 'Don't look down,' he advised. ' Don't look at the ditch.' It was still there, an effective barrier between them, but she closed her eyes and jumped, throwing herself as far forward as she dared. Before her feet touched the ground she was in his arms. For a moment—for a year, for ever—he held her, taking her full weight against him until she found her balance. His arms were like steel, his dark face set and stern. She lay against him, conscious of pain and bitterness slipping away from her, aware of nothing but his nearness and the heavy pounding of his heart. , They seemed to stand like that for an eternity before his hands slipped up to her shoulders and he put her aside. Their eyes met and she tried to probe the emotions in his. For the first time in her knowledge of him he looked uncertain. 'Iain, the other day . . .' He gathered up the holly and put it into her hands. 'The other day never was,' he said. ' It would be better if we forgot about it. If you consider that I owe you an apology I'm willing to make it. I'm sorry.' Without waiting for her reply, he turned on his heel and left her, striding up the glen towards Dromore. 'It won't keep you from coming to the castle, will it?' she called after him. ' I won't be there. I'm going home for Christmas with my family.'

He turned, looking at her as she stood there on the snow-covered road with the holly she had gathered in her arms. 'No, it won't make any difference,' he said. When he had disappeared completely out of sight she searched for the ferns she had gathered, small, fragile things which had just survived the snow. They were lying on the road. He hadn't seen them and, unaware, he had crushed them under his heavy boots. She gathered them up, but they were bruised beyond her help, yet she carried them back to Crane without reason and put them in a trough of water in her turret room.

CHAPTER IX 'I

didn't mean you to come all this way, Warren. You could have put me down at Waverley or even left me at Dalwhinnie to come by train.' Catherine turned to look at her companion, but Warren drove steadily on. 'Why should I have done that?' he asked. ' I've got half a day to get back to Crane.' 'It's Christmas Eve,' she said. ' You really ought to be with your family.' 'And you with yours. It's the old problem, Cathie. If we plan to please everybody we have to cut ourselves in half! Are you going to invite me in?' She flushed. 'Of course. You've already met my parents, haven't you?' He drew up before the gate and Catherine went in ahead of him. Her mother, who had seen their arrival from the sitting-room window, had rushed upstairs to change out of her working skirt and pullover. 'This is really too bad of you, Cathie,' she greeted her, ' bringing people in without warning. Is it Mr Harper?' 'He won't be staying,' Catherine assured her. ' I wondered if we could rustle up a cup of tea and a piece of cake.' 'I thought you might have invited him for a meal.' Isobel Roy looked relieved. ' Of course,. I could ask him to stay and meet your father.' 'He's going straight back to Glen Fionn,' Catherine explained. ' He wants to be there by eight o'clock.'

'We were surprised you came home, but we were pleased, of course.' Isobel tidied her hair. ' I'll follow you down in a minute. Put the kettle on, will you?' Warren was admiring their one painting when Catherine rejoined him in the sitting-room. 'It's Glen Affric,' she explained. ' That's Mam Soul in the distance. We used to go there for holidays. Dad is an inveterate fisherman.' 'So that's why you fell in love with Glen Fionn right away,' he smiled. ' They're very much alike.' 'Glen Fionn is wilder and—more intimate.' Somehow, she didn't want to discuss the glen. ' Here's Mother. I'll go and see to the tea.' Isobel Roy came in to shake him warmly by the hand, obviously half expecting some momentous hews. She looked cheated when he eventually rose to go. 'You'll come again, I hope,' she said. 'Whenever you are in Edinburgh. We're quiet people, but we'll make you welcome. Colin is looking forward so much to his few days in Glen Fionn in January. It's very kind of your mother to invite him. How is your sister?' She had left Stacey to the last, and Catherine wondered if she sensed Colin's interest in the girl she had only met once. 'Stacey always seems to be as fit as a fiddle,' Warren told her. ' She's skiing most days just now and looking forward to the New Year. It's a pity Colin couldn't come up for the dance on New Year's Eve,' he added. 'And Cathie.' Isobel pursed her lips.

'We're a very closely-knit family, Mr Harper,' she said. ' We've never been apart at this time of the year. I'm sure Colin must have explained that to you.' Warren backed towards the door. 'Yes, he did,' he agreed. ' It'll be nice seeing him in January. And you, too, Cathie.' He took her arm as they walked to the front door. ' Ten days,' he said. ' It's going to feel like a lifetime.' 'It will pass before you have time to think about it,' she assured him. ' You've got another house-party on your hands.' 'I don't know why we had to invite the Thourets again,' he sighed. ' Or the Collots, either. Gaby Collot and I went to school together, but I haven't seen her in years. Our respective mothers " keep up ", as they say, but old man Collot won't like the glen. He generally winters in Florida. He's the type who feels the cold.' He stooped to kiss her on the cheek. ' Come back, Cathie,' he said. ' I'll be waiting.' When he had driven away she found a small parcel on the hallstand where he had left his gloves. She read the inscription with a strange feeling of despondency in her heart. 'From Warren,' it said. 'With all my love. Not to be opened till Christmas Day!' He was the most thoughtful person she had ever known and so kind, into the bargain, but his gift would only make her think of Crane all the more. When she opened it they would all be gathered round the Christmas tree Stacey had decorated, and behind them the row of portraits would look down and the logs in the great open fireplace would send their warmth through the hall and their light flickering up to the rafters. Flora's guests would ski all morning in the keen mountain air and come down for Christmas dinner before they went to dance at the castle.

And at Dromore? Surely Elizabeth Harper would never allow Iain to spend Christmas on his own! All the following day, while she helped her mother with their own Christmas dinner, she wondered where he was—at Arduaine or at the castle. With Flora or with Stacey. During the next ten days so much could happen. Her sudden restlessness seemed to be reflected in Colin. When she opened Warren's parcel and produced the lovely silk scarf it contained he asked what she had given Stacey. 'It was difficult to decide,' Catherine admitted. ' I settled for a book— about ponies.' 'She has everything, I suppose,' he said. They visited relations at New Year, first-footing in the traditional manner. 'I hear you're working for a rich American,' her aunt remarked. ' And he's quite young, I understand. Is there going to be a Romance?' She would have spelt it with a capital letter, Catherine thought, trying to smile naturally. 'Cathie's keeping her own counsel,' her mother said with a touch of irritation. ' Mr Harper is a Canadian, Peg, but it's much the same thing.' 'Maybe there's someone else she fancies!' Aunt Peg looked coy. ' It's time you were off the shelf, Cathie. You don't want to be an old maid.'

Catherine was beginning to think the days would never pass, yet she hadn't consciously faced the question she had posed herself. Whether to continue her job at Crane or not. Warren settled the matter for her in his inimitable way. On the third of January he arrived in Edinburgh to drive her back to the glen. 'I had some business to see to,' he lied unashamedly, since most of the Edinburgh business houses were enjoying a prolonged New Year. January the first had fallen on a Thursday and ' the day after' being Friday, most offices had closed for a long weekend from the previous Wednesday evening. ' I thought we might as well travel back together.' Catherine didn't know quite what to say. It was her mother who clinched the bargain. 'Why not?' she asked. ' You would be travelling on Monday, anyway. I suppose Colin could go with you. You'll stay the night, of course, Mr Harper,?' she invited. ' We have plenty of room.' It wasn't strictly true, but Colin would sleep on the settee downstairs and Warren would be made comfortable in his bedroom. 'That's real kind of you,' he accepted eagerly. ' But if it's putting you out I could take a room in an hotel.' They went to a theatre in the evening, managing three seats in the dress circle, at the back. They were returns, the best the management could do. 'Let's get away early tomorrow morning,' Colin suggested almost too eagerly. 'I've managed to borrow some skis. Stacey's old ones were a bit short.'

Isobel Roy had the grace not to warn him to be careful, although h» sudden animation surprised her. When they were. leaving she said again that she hoped Warren would continue to visit them. The city streets had been cleared of snow, but they met it again at Perth. The Sidlaws were a white rampart, cutting off Strathmore, and the long chain of the Grampians retired ahead of them until it seemed that they would never find a way through. At Blair Atholl they stopped for lunch, pressing on through Glen Garry in the early afternoon. At every halt and stopping place skiers gathered in their peacock colours against the white hillsides, their laughter echoing in the still, cold air. Soon they were on the last stage of their journey. Glen Fionn lay ahead of them, cradled in the heart of the mountains. Catherine felt the old excitement stirring in her veins, although each passing mile might be bringing her steadily nearer to heartbreak. The festivities at Christmas and New Year could have produced so much. She hadn't been able to bring herself to question Warren about the glen. They had spoken about other things, and Colin had been shy about mentioning Stacey. 'I guess I've got an awful backlog of work waiting for you, Cathie,' Warren admitted as they drove through the village. ' I'm sorry, but it just didn't get done these past two weeks.' 'That's what I'm here for,' she reminded him. He glanced at her as if he would refute the suggestion and then he smiled. 'So it is,' he said. ' You were always a stickler for seeing I had my pound of flesh!'

Catherine sat forward in her seat, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted as she waited for her first glimpse of the castle. The loch had changed from blue to grey, but it was still without a ripple. Glassy black patches hugged the shore where the pines came down to steep their feet in the water, and on the far side the reflection of the snowcapped peaks lay inverted in a paler stretch of grey. A heron waded out on to a gravel spit to stand, engraved, in silent contemplation of the scene and all the old magic came back to tug at her heart and mock her resolution to be gone. The white, winding road took them to the castle gates, but she found, herself looking beyond the bridge and the pine wood towards Dromore. All she could see was its grey roof with the squat chimneys rising against the white hillside and the line of rowans and alder that marked the descent of the burn. Stacey and her mother had heard the car's approach and were standing in the open doorway to greet them. 'What a time you've taken!' Stacey cried. ' We expected you for lunch.' 'You'll notice I'm driving a car, not a helicopter!' Warren laughed. ' I said tea would be more like it when I phoned.' He kissed his mother. ' How have you been?' 'Oh, fine. Just fine!' Stacey looked at Colin. ' I'm glad you managed to come,' she said almost shyly. 'Why are we standing on the doorstep?' Mrs Harper wanted to know. 'Come away in, Cathie. And you, too, Warren. You can put the car away later.' It was truly coming home, Catherine thought. Where the heart lies!

The upper hall was warm and bright with firelight, as she had imagined it for the past ten days, and a table set with a lace cloth and pink china had been drawn into the ingle-nook. There was no sign of Mrs Harper's other guests. 'We're on our own,' she explained. ' The Collots wanted to see Balmoral, so Ginny and Albert took them over to Braemar for a few days. Come to the fire and get warm, Cathie. Janet has gone to infuse the tea.' 'And now let's have the news,' Warren said when they were finally settled round the fire. ' What have you been doing for two whole days?' Catherine held her breath. 'Do you mean me?' Stacey asked. 'You'll do, for a start.' 'Reading, walking; skiing.' Stacey ticked them off on her fingers. 'In reverse order,' Warren laughed. ' When did you last read, Stacey?' She looked affronted. 'I often do,' she defended herself with a covert glance in Colin's direction. ' Cathie gave me a book for Christmas, remember, and I 'bet I've read more Shakespeare than you have in the past five years.' 'Let it pass!' Warren grinned. ' What else have you been up to?' 'I've been to Dromore—twice,' she said. Catherine's fingers tightened on the handle of her cup, but Stacey had apparently nothing further to add to her brief announcement.

'And the rest of the time you've been at Arduaine, I suppose,' Warren concluded. 'More or less.' Stacey passed round the toasted scones. ' We must all be up at first light tomorrow,' she added. ' Flora has started to hold competitions. I've entered you for the slalom, Warren. We marked out the route this morning.' Her brother stretched lazily. 'Supposing I hadn't wanted to enter?' he asked. 'You must. You really must!' Stacey insisted. ' We can't let the Fleet Air Arm beat everybody. Flora has asked Iain to enter, but I don't know whether he will or not. He helped with the marker flags and he certainly is fast.' Her former cynicism had given place to admiration and her eyes were warm now when she spoke about the laird. Yet when they drove over to Glen Larig the following morning she offered Warren her loyal support. 'I'll be rooting for you,' she promised, ' and you can cheer like mad when it comes to my turn!' 'Iain's coming over,' Flora told them when they met on the way up to the ski-slopes. ' We've badgered him into competing, but he won't be able to come over till midday, so he can do his run last.' She gave Catherine a warm smile. 'Did you have a nice holiday?' she asked. ' I can't quite believe it's over. We were fantastically busy here. I've never worked so hard in all my life!' 'Grist to the mill,' Warren said. ' And you must admit you enjoy every minute of it.'

'I believe I do,' Flora agreed. ' And while the snow lasts like this I don't suppose I can look for much respite.. The glen is certainly building up as a centre and we may even be able to open a chair-lift one of these days.' The climb to the higher slopes was stiff and invigorating and Catherine, as a beginner, lagged far behind. Stacey kept coming back to look for her, like an anxious sheepdog rounding up a straying ewe. Colin, who had skied previously at Nethybridge and Glen Shee, was in his element, although he refused to enter any of the competitions. He didn't consider himself proficient enough. 'It needs long practice,' he said, watching Warren clock up the fastest time for the men's slalom. ' It looks as if Warren might be the winner.' 'Two more to go,' Stacey said, skiing to a halt beside them. ' Johnny Bilsland and the laird. I think Iain might just do it.' 'I thought you were rooting for me,' Warren objected. ' Anyway, it's time to eat. Mine was the last run down before lunch.' They ate their packed meal sheltered from the wind by a group of boulders, the winter sun on their faces as they looked up to the white shoulder of Cairn Toul. It was an ideal day, with no hint of a cloud in the sky and blue shadows on the foothills. The echo of laughter drifted up to them from the nursery slopes and a solitary eagle soared above them before it veered away in the direction of the distant Monadhliaths. It was almost two o'clock before Iain put in an appearance, and he went straight on to the course. Catherine felt Warren stiffen by her side as he watched the tall black figure skim across the snow. Iain paused for a moment to salute them before he crouched into his starting position.,,

'He'll win,' Stacey said before he was halfway down. 'I'm sorry, Warren.' Her brother's narrowed eyes followed the lightning descent as flag after flag was passed without penalty. There was no question about the result long before the announcement was made. Iain took his victory calmly enough. 'I've had years of practice,' he said briefly when they went to congratulate him. Flora flung her arms round his neck, hugging him spontaneously. 'I told you!' she cried. ' Now will you think twice about starting up at Dromore?' He smiled wryly. 'You're much too much of a business woman for me, Flora,' he said. ' And Dromore's too remote.' 'One day I'll manage to persuade you,' she returned positively. ' Sheep are all very well, but there are other ways of earning a living.' He turned without answering to find Catherine by his side. 'Have you had a pleasant holiday?' he asked. 'Pleasant, but quiet.' He surely couldn't be remembering their last meeting when he had held her for a moment close against his heart. She felt herself struggling for the commonplace remark, the brief formality to match his own. ' Did you?' she asked bleakly. 'I went to Arduaine,' he said. 'Flora can be very insistent once she has made up her mind.'

They walked back to the ski-tow in a straggling little group. 'Colin and I are going to ski down,' Stacey announced. ' It's still light enough, and Colin has been standing around all afternoon. See you at Crane!' She waved to them as she shot away, with Colin in happy attendance. 'I hope they won't attempt to go through the Gap,' Iain observed, his brows drawn sharply together as he watched them disappear. ' There's a nasty stretch just below the shoulder. If they keep to the Pass they should be all right.' Catherine's heart contracted, as if at some strange premonition of disaster. 'Perhaps we shouldn't have let them go,' she said. ' Stacey's all right, but Colin isn't really very experienced.' 'They've got the best part of an hour before the light fades,' Warren pointed out. 'They'll make it easily.' Iain took his leave of them before they reached Arduaine. 'I'll look out for them on the Pass,' he promised. ' I wouldn't be too long before I started back, if I were you,' he added. ' We're going to have another storm.' 'Iain can smell snow a mile away!' Flora smiled. ' Are you sure you won't come in, Iain? You could pick up your prize,' she added as an extra incentive. 'I'll get it next time I'm over.' He pulled on his ski- mitts, glancing quickly northwards. ' I'll be on my way.'

'Beannachd leat!' Flora called to him a trifle belatedly as he shot away. 'I suppose we ought to take his advice,' Warren conceded, stowing their skis on the roof of their car. ' The clouds are piling up over there.' Going up towards the Pass they saw a distant black figure skimming across the snow ahead of them. Iain turned when they passed on the road beneath him to wave one of his sticks in salute, but there was no sign of Stacey and Colin. There was still no sign of them by six o'clock that evening. The blizzard Iain had expected was sweeping over the Pass and through the gap between the hills, obliterating everything. Warren had crossed to the door a dozen times, peering out into the night, anger and anxiety creasing his brow into a worried frown. 'I should have curbed Stacey's impetuosity a long time ago.' Selfaccusation was the nearest he came to blame. ' I ought to have taken her in hand. She's flown in the face of restraint all her life.' Catherine put a sympathetic hand on his arm. 'Don't worry too much,' she said gently, although her own heart was chilled with fear. ' They could have sheltered somewhere when the storm blew up.' 'MacAllister saw it coming. He warned them not to waste any time.' They were standing together in the lower hall. ' I wonder—could they have gone to Dromore?' 'It's possible.' She glanced behind them to the ingle- nook where Mrs Harper and Janet stood beside the fire. ' The thing is, we didn't see them coming over the Pass.'

'That's what's worrying me,' he agreed beneath his breath. ' And they were warned about the Gap.' 'The Gap would bring them down on the far side of Dromore,' Catherine calculated. ' It's the better ski trail, even if it is a longer way round -' He cut her short. 'I'm going up there,' he said. ' I can get the car as far as the bridge.' She didn't argue. 'Please let me come,' she begged. ' If—anything has happened my mother would never forgive me if I hadn't gone in search of Colin.' He hesitated, wanting to refuse. 'Please, Warren!' He glanced in his mother's direction. 'Janet will stay with her,' Catherine said. ' They're both too practical to panic.' 'What do you think?' Elizabeth Harper asked, coming to the head of the steps. ' Maybe we should start a search.' Her voice was harsh with anxiety. 'Cathie and I are going up towards the Pass,' Warren told her as Janet came to stand beside her. ' If they doubled back that way we ought to meet them.' 'You would be near Dromore,' Janet said. ' If the young master isn't out looking for sheep he'll lend you a hand. Nobody knows these hills better than he does.'

'Where's Duncan?' Warren asked. 'He went away out about four o'clock,' Janet explained. ' Up the hill. He gives the laird a wee help now and then and he smelt the storm coming. He was born and bred here in the glen. Duncan's not the one to be taken by surprise by the weather.' Warren pulled his anorak over his head. 'Better wrap up well, Cathie,' he advised. ' You can carry on up to Dromore while I search over the Pass.' 'What about the Sma' Glen?' Janet suggested. ' Could they have tried that way?' 'They set out in the direction of the Pass.' Warren's lips were tightly compressed. ' But, knowing Stacey, they could be anywhere.' He put some brandy in a hip flask as Catherine fastened her boots. Nobody had thought to change and she was still in trousers and pullover. 'Wear my sheepskin jacket,' Mrs Harper offered. ' And—don't take any risks, either of you.' She looked steadily into Catherine's eyes, trying as best she could to disguise the fear in her own. ' If you can reach Iain MacAllister it will be half the battle.' 'Stacey and Colin may even be at Dromore,' Catherine said hopefully. ' There isn't a telephone so they couldn't have let us know.' With that fervent hope in their hearts, they set out for the head of the glen. Sheltered by the pines until they reached the first bridge across the river, they found the road reasonably clear, but once they began to climb and the open moor lay ahead of them the track vanished. The wind howling down from the Pass hurled the snow against them so ferociously and consistently that even the high-powered car was

no match for it. The windscreen-wipers ceased to work and they were left staring at a white wall of snow that grew denser every minute. 'We'll have to walk from here,' Warren decided, switching off the engine when he had cleared the windscreen by hand and drawn into a convenient passing- bay. ' How far is it to the bridge, do you think?' 'No more than half a mile, I should say.' He unstrapped his skis from the roof, shaking the snow from them before he slung them across his shoulders. Catherine picked up his sticks. 'You're sure you can make Dromore from the bridge?' he asked. 'Quite sure.' When they reached the small, hump-backed bridge where the roads branched he stopped, peering down at her through the falling snow. 'I don't like this one little bit,' he said. ' Letting you go alone.' 'It's no distance—quarter of a mile, at most.' She forced a smile as she wiped the snow from her forehead. ' Every minute is precious and I would only hinder you on the Pass.' Swiftly he bent to kiss her on the cheek. 'You're a brick, Cathie,' he said. 'Good luck, or beannachd leat, or whatever that wild phrase of Flora's is! We'll need all the help we can get!' Catherine thought she was never going to reach Dromore. Buffeted by the wind and half blinded by snow, she stumbled off the narrow track, again and again, sometimes regaining it only by a miracle of instinct. Its rutted surface was her only guide, and even that was fast

disappearing under the fresh blanket of snow. Fantastic illusions of barriers appearing suddenly across her path slowed her progress to a snail's pace, but at last she came to the fenced-in area round the lodge itself. She had stumbled against it in one of her wild plunges off the road and she felt her way along it, knowing that she must eventually reach the gate. The latch resisted her at first, until she realized that she was pushing against a deepening drift of snow, but finally she managed enough room to squeeze through. The approach road on the other side was reasonably defined and gradually the lodge took shape ahead of her. She began to run then and all but threw herself against the stout oak door. There was a light burning behind the nearest window and she could have cried at sight of it. At least Iain was there! A heavy tread sounded across the hall and she stood back, waiting for him to open the door. Iain stood for a split second, staring at her in complete astonishment before he pulled her inside. 'What's happened?' he asked, as if he expected her always to be the bearer of ill news. ' You haven't walked all this way?' She shook her head, struggling to regain her breath. 'Warren brought me as far as the bridge.' She pushed back her hood. ' He's gone on, up over the Pass. It's Colin and Stacey,' she explained. ' They haven't come back.' He led her to the fire. 'I guessed as much,' he said. 'They took the Forestry road.' His eyes smouldered with impatience. ' If they missed the path under the shoulder they would have to go on through the Gap.'

'I know you warned them, Iain,' she said pleadingly, 'but they would hardly do it on purpose. Stacey missed the path once before, that day you came in search of us, but she would feel sure this time. She's been riding and skiing across the hills for nearly three months -' 'Three months!' he exclaimed. ' Three years isn't enough. Stacey takes far too much for granted. She's nothing more than a stupid, impetuous child.' 'I'm sorry.' She drew back. ' I thought you would help us -' 'Of course I'll help you. What did you expect?' His anger abated a little. ' Take off your coat and make yourself a hot drink while I get my boots.' He strode off into the kitchen, filling a kettle for her as he passed the scullery sink and handing it back to her to put on the stove. When he returned she was trying to shake the snow from her jacket on to the stone flags of the hearth. 'Don't bother about that,' he commanded. ' Get yourself thawed out. You looked like death a minute ago. Harper ought to have had more sense, bringing you out on a night like this.' 'I pleaded to come. Iain, do you think -' He stooped to unbutton her coat. 'One doesn't think in an emergency like this,' he said briefly. ' We try to make sure. If I find them I'll bring them back here. I gather your brother hasn't a great deal of experience.' 'None at all under these conditions.' She bit her lip, thanking him in an agony of gratitude. ' It's good of you, Iain. I know how much you

have to do and how —unnecessary all this must seem, but-but it was a mistake. I promise you that. Colin isn't the foolhardy type.' 'He didn't strike me that way,' he agreed. There was a shuffling in the scullery and a door banged in the wind. Iain turned towards it, as if he had been waiting for someone. Before he reached the door, however, Duncan had opened it. He stared in Catherine's direction in utter amazement. 'Miss Roy?' he said. ' I thought you were safe back at the castle.' Iain was struggling into his boots. 'Miss Roy's brother and Miss Stacey are missing, Duncan,' he explained. ' They may have tried to come through the Gap. I'm going in search of them.' 'But—the sheep?' Duncan protested. ' If this goes on we'll have to dig them out. As it is, there's four missing over the burn on the Ardgyle side.' Iain reached for his anorak. 'They'll have to take their chance,' he said. ' See what you can do on your own, Duncan. I'll be as quick as I can.' Before he reached the door there was a little sobbing cry on the outside, like the whimper of a hurt animal crouching out there in the snow. He wrenched it open and Stacey staggered into the sanctuary of his arms. She let him hold her for a moment while the driving snow whirled about them, covering floor and carpets indiscriminately, and then she thrust her head back to beg his help.'

'It's Colin,' she whispered through lips turned cold with fear. ' He fell. We were coming down under the shoulder. He can't move. I think— he's broken his leg.' For the first time she saw Catherine standing behind Iain, but she continued to cling to his hand. 'I'll show you,' she offered. ' I managed to get him down under a ledge. Please help me, Iain.' She stretched a tentative hand in Catherine's direction, her eyes dark with anxiety. ' I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to him. I persuaded him to go.' 'Nothing's going to happen.' Iain's voice was amazingly kind. ' You'll have to come back with me, Stacey,' he decided, ' so pull yourself together. I could lose a lot of time searching on my own. There are dozens of ledges up there. I only hope you know which is the right one.' 'I left my red sweater and my scarf. I hung the sweater on a tree.' Stacey had behaved more sensibly than Iain would have believed, ' These were the two difficult places, where we could go wrong on the way back.' He nodded in agreement, taking his skis from behind the door. 'The kettle's boiling,' he said. ' Cathie will make you something hot to drink while I look out some splints. We'll have to tow a sledge.' Stacey crouched beside the hearth, staring into the fire, while Catherine brought three steaming mugs of cocoa from the kitchen. 'I wish—oh, I do wish this hadn't happened!' she wailed. ' Everybody will be so cross, and it wasn't all my fault. Not this time. I'll die,' she added, ' I'll just die if Colin's seriously hurt. He's so different from anyone else I've ever met—so quiet and kind and generous. We

were—getting fond of each other.' Her pleading eyes sought for Catherine's understanding. ' And Mom liked the idea. She really did. She said Colin would do well, though I think she wanted me to fall in love with Iain at first. I never could,' she rushed on, cradling the hot mug between her icy fingers. 'I admire him and I think he's handsome, of course, but he's too old—really too old for me. It's someone like Colin I need, someone who'll keep me from flying off at a tangent too often and yet liking it when we're quite mad together.' She drew a deep breath. ' I can't explain it, Cathie; not properly, but I guess you know what I'm trying to say.' Catherine nodded. If this was a bitter disappointment to Iain he didn't show it. He had heard most of Stacey's confused little confession as he came back into the room through the open kitchen door, but there was nothing in his expression to suggest that it meant anything more to him than a brief embarrassment. 'If you're ready, Stacey,' he said, ' we'll start.' Catherine held out the beaker of cocoa. 'Take time to drink it, Iain,' she begged. 'You'd just come in off the hill when I arrived.' He hesitated, as if he were about to refuse, and then he took the beaker from her. Their fingers touched and a small, warm current of understanding flowed between them. 'If we see Harper on the way up we'll let him know, but the main thing is to get Colin down here,' he said. ' Perhaps you could look out blankets and sheets in the meantime? There's plenty in that chest of drawers over there and the bedrooms are through that door. We won't get him as far as Crane tonight.'

Left alone in the empty house, Catherine set to work as quickly as she could, giving herself little time to think further ahead than the immediate emergency and the. necessity of providing a bed and warmth, for Colin. What they were going to do if his leg were broken, she didn't know. Perhaps Warren, when he came, could go for a doctor. It would have to be back across the Pass to Inverlarig, for there was no resident physician in Glen Fionn. Dromore was well equipped for a winter's siege. Iain had piled the log shed to the roof with handy round pine logs and there was a stack of dried peat under cover beside the back door. She flung Mrs Harper's sheepskin jacket over her shoulders to bring in more logs, lighting a fire in one of the bedrooms which had not been occupied for some time. Iain's own room was at the far end of the corridor, and when she had tidied the living-room and put some blankets to warm in front of the fire she looked in to see if the bed was made. By the look of the kitchen it hadn't been Mrs McFee's day for coming in. The bedroom was in a sort of ordered confusion dear to the male heart. The blankets had been pulled up and the counterpane spread over them with one end trailing on the floor. She evened it, sorting away a discarded sweater and several pairs of socks which had been darned after a fashion, probably by Mrs MacFee in a hurry. The dressing-chest she decided to leave alone. It held an assortment of fishing tackle, flies and hooks and the dismantled sections of a rod. A gun stood against a chair. She was turning away when she saw the two keys on a silver tray on the table beside the window. They were like all the other keys at Crane, with the double eagle carving which was part of the MacAllister crest. The missing keys to the balcony doors!

Iain must have been determined that the balconies should never be used again when he had gone to the trouble of bringing the keys with him to Dromore. A sound above the shrieking of the wind sent her running back to the hall and the warmth she had created there met her like a caress. Iain was already at the kitchen door. He met the anxious questions in her eyes with a few brief words of explanation. 'Everything's under control. You're not to worry, Cathie.' He looked round the tidied room, but he made no comment. ' We'll bring Colin in by the back door. It's more sheltered. If you've made up the bed I think we'll take him straight through.' 'Is he going to be all right?' He hesitated for the barest fraction of a second. 'I'm hoping so.' Suddenly his jaw tensed. 'I couldn't tell Stacey the truth,' he admitted. ' She seems to be fond of him and very upset—but I'm not too happy about the job we've done. As soon as we get him into bed I'm going to Inverlarig for the doctor.' She wanted to protest, but she couldn't in face of her brother's need. 'It's a terrible journey,' was all she found to say. He smiled down at her. 'If you'll bring the sheets along we'll bring him in,' he said. With Stacey's help he carried Colin along the corridor on the improvised stretcher he had constructed before he had gone up across the Gap. Stacey, white-faced and silent, refused to be turned away.

'I'm staying,' she said doggedly. ' Colin wants me to.' Colin's half-closed eyes were glazed with pain, but he did his best to acknowledge them. 'Sony about this,' he muttered. ' Making so much trouble. . . .' 'Forget about it,' Iain said. ' We'll get a doctor to have a look at you if you can just grin and bear it for a while longer.' Colin grasped his hand. 'Thanks,' he murmured. 'You've been wonderful.' Catherine knelt beside the bed while Iain examined his handiwork. 'You're going to be all right, Colin,' she whispered. Iain rose and crossed to the door, motioning her outside. 'I'm not satisfied,' he said. ' I've done what I can, but it doesn't seem to be a clean break.' He fastened his anorak. ' See that he doesn't move about too much. I've nothing but aspirin to offer you to ease the pain, I'm afraid, but I'll get back with Doctor Gilmour as quickly as I can.' 'I wish Warren would come,' she said, thinking that he might have been spared the extra journey. 'He will, I suppose, but the jeep is more likely to make it across the Pass in weather like this than that unwieldy car of his.' Before she could voice her thanks for what he had already done he had gone. It seemed to take him an eternity to start up the jeep and he had to drive with the windscreen down so that he could see. It was

the only way, and even when he knew the road so well he would be forced to travel at a snail's pace.

CHAPTER X It was an hour later before Warren struggled to the door. 'I met MacAllister on his way over the Pass,' he said, stamping the snow from his boots. ' He'll never make it. I had to turn back long before I got to the top. This is an infernal country! I wonder that anybody would want to live here.' He was cold and tired and more than a little put out because Iain had succeeded twice in one day where he had failed. ' I'm sorry about Colin's leg,' he added. ' Where is he? I'd better have a word with him.' 'We've given him aspirin and I think he may have dropped off to sleep,' Catherine explained. ' Stacey won't leave him. Don't say anything to her, Warren,' she begged. ' She's terribly upset,. and it really wasn't her fault. I think you should go back to Crane. Iain might not think to phone your mother when he gets to Inverlarig.' 'If he gets there,' Warren submitted. 'Maybe I should make an effort to get back. Mother will be frantic by now, even with Janet there. I can't see her wanting to stay here much after this,' he added. ' No telephones, no decent roads, no doctor within miles! It makes one think civilization's not such a bad thing, after all.' She let the little cynicism pass. 'You ought to go,' she urged. ' I still think Iain will make it, but you could phone Doctor Gilmour, just in case.' 'How would he get over?' Warren wanted to know. .. 'He probably knows someone with a jeep.' Stacey refused to go back to the castle with him.

'I'm staying here,' she repeated, and nothing would make her change her mind. After Warren had gone she dozed once or twice, so exhausted that she couldn't keep her eyes open. 'Lie down for an hour,' Catherine begged. ' Iain won't mind you using his room, and I'll call you as soon as the doctor arrives.' 'Lie down?' Stacey gazed at her in astonishment. ' As if I could! No, I'm staying with Colin, so don't try to send me away.' 'Nobody wants to send you away,' Catherine said gently. ' I just thought you might be tired.' 'I'm never tired.' Stacey shook herself awake. 'Why doesn't Iain allow this to be made into a rest house?' she said after a moment or two. ' It would be the ideal spot. The skiing on the other side of the Pass is terrific.' 'Perhaps he has some reason of his own,' Catherine suggested. ' He may not want to part with it.' 'It's Crane he doesn't want to part with,' Stacey declared. ' So Flora says, although he did leave Crane partly because of Pamela.' 'Pamela?' A tight hand seemed to fasten over Catherine's throat. Stacey looked at her in dismay. 'Hasn't Flora told you?' she asked. .' Iain and Pamela were engaged. She was very beautiful, Flora says, and absolutely false.' Catherine drew in a deep breath.

'Don't tell me any more, Stacey,' she said. ' I think I know what happened. Somehow he found her out, and he'll never fall in love again.' Her eyes were bleak as they went beyond Stacey to the restless figure lying on the bed. This was Iain's secret; this was his real reason for living up here like a recluse with no woman about the place except the witchlike Mrs MacFee. He wanted his privacy and they had shattered it, again and again. She had been the first offender and Mrs MacFee had tried to warn her, and then there had been Stacey with her confident assumption that Crane and Dromore were one and the same thing. And now he had been forced to offer Colin the shelter of his roof and the use of his time. Time that was invaluable to him. With a sense of guilt she made tea and found scones and butter and cheese for a ' starving ' Stacey. Colin, who had been tossing restlessly, had dropped into an uneasy sleep. 'I'll stay here,' Stacey decided, feeding the fire with logs. ' It's gloriously warm.' She nursed her cup between her hands. ' Warren ought to be at the castle by now.' Catherine went back to the kitchen to find Duncan struggling with the back door. He was too old to be out on a night like this, she thought. The collie passed her, making for the warmth of the hearth. 'Is Mr Iain home?' Duncan wanted to know. ' I've got a hold of the ewes, but they're pretty deep in.' 'He hasn't come back yet, Duncan.' She could see the concern on the old man's face. ' It might be quite a while before they get through from Inverlarig. Could you do anything by yourself?' 'It'll take longer,' he said with a stoical disregard for time. 'And the snow isn't easing off. If the ewes weren't in lamb it wouldn't be so

bad, but it'll be a loss —a big loss—for the young master if we can't get them free.' 'What will you do?' she asked. 'Dig,' he answered laconically. 'There's five or six of them. That's eighteen of next year's flock—the six ewes with two followers apiece. There won't be any lambs if we lose the ewes.' Catherine knew what she had to do then. 'I'm coming with you,' she said. 'At least, I can dig.' Duncan looked-at her uncertainly, but she was already struggling into her coat. 'Ay, well, maybe you could,' he said. When she told Stacey she nodded her agreement. 'We owe it to Iain,' she said. 'I wish I could help. Whatever makes the wretched things wander so far?' 'It's their nature,' Catherine said at the door. ' If you restrict them they mope, I believe.' She glanced towards the bed. ' You're not nervous about being left?' 'No.' Stacey was firm about her reactions. 'I'll cope.' Torn between the desire to stay with her brother and the desperate need of the moment, Catherine hurried away. She just couldn't leave Duncan to go back out into the snow alone and the sheep meant a great deal to Iain. She had seen it in his expression when he had first gone in search of Colin, and now the position appeared to be more serious than before.

'I had an idea where the limmers would make for once the snow started,' Duncan said, whistling for Liath as they set out. ' They had wandered up on the far side of Ardgyle. When it gets thick they huddle together in the lee of a dyke and that's when the bother starts. If there's a bit of drifting they get covered. If they're lost for hours— or maybe days—they're smothered to death. There's the chance, forby, of one of them being ill.' They put their heads down against the driving wind and turned up the hill, with Liath creeping in their wake. Ardgyle lay across the burn on the far side of Dromore, but Duncan had already made a track of sorts. 'We'll be fine once we reach the dyke,' he tried to assure Catherine when she was forced to pause for breath. ' It's not too far now.' The real work began when they reached the spot where the ewes were trapped. They had huddled together under a dry stone wall which bounded the moor and the rapidly-drifting snow had covered them within half an hour. Duncan had dug with his hands to make what he called a ' blow-hole ', but already it had been filled in. The ewes had lost all inclination to move. They were comfortable and warm. They would close their eyes and die. Liath sniffed in a wide semi-circle close to the wall. 'We'll have to go canny with the digging,' Duncan warned. ' I'll ease the spade in and we'll take them, one by One.' Time passed them by uncounted. Catherine was never quite sure afterwards how long they worked and it seemed an eternity before the first ewe was free. Digging and pulling alternately, Duncan set the dazed animal on its feet as the collie sniffed it for identification.

'She'll do!' The old man's voice was full of satisfaction, although he still appeared to be anxious. ' There's five more, by the look of things.' They worked without saying very much after that. If Duncan was tiring he didn't show it. He had the strength of an ox and this was no new experience as far as he was concerned. The cold seemed to drive straight through Catherine and her fingers were so numb that She could scarcely grasp the spade. When the last ewe was freed it looked a sorry sight. The other five had managed to remain on their feet, bleating their submission as Liath kept them in an orderly group, but the sixth one just lay there on its side, glassy-eyed and panting. It looked completely helpless, its legs already in the air. Duncan stooped to examine it and then he knelt down on the trodden snow and slung it over his shoulders. 'We'll get this one back,' he said briefly. ' The others will do.' Catherine trailed the spade behind her. 'Will they follow us?' she asked. 'Liath will look after them.' Duncan was forging ahead with his heavy burden. ' I'll come back once we've seen to this one.' They met Iain as they turned towards Dromore. He was carrying a storm lantern and he swung it high above- Catherine's head. 'Merciful heaven, Cathie! What took you out on a night like this?' His voice was shaken, not with anger this time but with another emotion she couldn't put a name to. ' Anything could have happened to you.' He saw Duncan, then, carrying the ewe.

'Miss Roy's a fine young woman,' the old man said. ' Well worthy of your thanks, Mr Iain. She worked like a Trojan out there, and her frozen to the marrow!' Catherine stood looking at Iain, the spade still in her hand. The tremendous sense of achievement she had felt all the way from Ardgyle was still reflected in her eyes and there was a note of personal triumph in her voice when she said: 'We got them all out. Only this one might not do too well.' Iain scarcely glanced at the ewe as he led her towards the house. 'Duncan should have known better than to let you go,' he said harshly. ' He thinks about sheep before anything else. He's too old for this game—on his own.' 'And you would have been with him if you hadn't gone for the doctor,' she said quietly. ' I had to do it, Iain. I wanted to go out there.' Their eyes met and held in the brighter light of the scullery and she saw the small flame in his which once she had taken for a kindling anger. 'You make it sound as if we've broken even,' he said, turning to relieve Duncan of his burden. ' The doctor's with Colin,' he added. ' I didn't do too well with the splint, apparently. He's re-setting the leg and putting it in plaster.' Catherine hurried along to the bedroom where Stacey was still more or less in charge. 'We're not to disturb him,' she whispered. ' Doctor Gilmour has given him something to let him sleep till the morning. Then we can take him back to Crane.'

The doctor wiped the remains of the plaster off his hands. 'That ought to fix things,' he said cheerfully. ' He should be able to hobble in the morning with the help of a couple of sticks, but make sure that he goes carefully for a day or two. The plaster can come off in Edinburgh. I'll write him a note to take to the Infirmary.' Duncan was bending over the sick ewe when Catherine returned to the kitchen. He had laid it beside the stove and already had a kettle boiling. 'We'll make her a wee taste of gruel,' he decided. ' She's coming to.' He knelt on the stone flags to take the animal's head between his knees. ' Ay, you're thawing out fine!' he said. ' You'll live to have your twins yet, cailleach-an!' Catherine looked round for Iain. 'He's away for the rest of the sheep,' Duncan explained. ' I told him I would go, but he would have none of it. He's a thrawn man when he imagines he's doing the right thing. He said you were to see to the doctor till he got back.' For the first time Catherine thought about Crane. 'I wonder if Mr Harper got through,' she said when the doctor put his head round the kitchen door. 'He managed it all right. We phoned from my surgery before we left.' Doctor Gilmour came to the sink to wash his hands. ' He seems to have a poor opinion of our means of communication up here,' he chuckled. ' These high-pressure big businessmen are all the same. He told the laird he wouldn't buy the castle if it was handed to him on a silver salver!' Catherine smiled.

'He was very keen to buy it at one time,' she said as she mixed oatmeal and hot water in a pot and began to stir it over the stove. ' But I don't think the laird would ever have parted with it.' 'Renting it is one thing, selling it's another,' Doctor Gilmour agreed. ' Crane's Iain's birthright. It would be like tearing the heart out of the man to sell.' The kettle boiled and she made tea, carrying it through to the hall fire on a tray she found propped against a window to seal off a draught. Suddenly she was happier than she had ever been before. When Iain returned she was on her knees on the kitchen floor, spooning the warm gruel down the ewe's throat. The sick animal lay relaxed between Duncan's legs and a fire was roaring up the chimney. Catherine felt the rush of cold air from the door as he came in, but he stood for several seconds looking down at her bowed head before he spoke. . 'The snow's easing a bit,' he said. ' I'll take the doctor back over the Pass.' She looked up in protest, aware once again of the tiny flame flickering in his eyes that could have been the reflection of the fire behind her. He looked tired and dishevelled, almost as dishevelled as she did herself, but he also looked triumphant. Their mutual effort of the past few hours had drawn them strongly together and she couldn't argue with him even for his own protection. He would complete his task; he would take the doctor back to Inverlarig in the jeep in case his services might be needed elsewhere before morning. When they had gone she washed up the teacups and tidied the kitchen. The ewe still lay close to the fire, but even her inexperienced eye could see the improvement in its general condition. Duncan had gone off to attend to the rest of the flock, taking the collie with him,

and Stacey was still sitting beside Colin. The house was very quiet under its blanket of snow. She sat beside the fire, listening to the regular ticking of the clock, waiting. The stillness of the outside world had penetrated into the house, a vast, encircling peace dropping slowly against her heart. All the stress and turmoil of the past few weeks slipped away. She had come home. She watched the ewe, thinking about the endless effort of a hill farmer's life, the lambing and the dipping and the shearing and the constant vigilance it demanded. In a little over a month's time the first lambs would be born at Dromore and she wanted to be there to see it all. Drowsily she allowed her thoughts to stray back over the past few hours and then she roused herself to prepare for Iain's return. Driving all that way in the uncomfortable jeep, he would come home cold and hungry and more tired than he realized. There was plenty of tinned food in the kitchen cupboard, and she opened soup and corned beef to make a warm casserole which would keep in the oven without spoiling. Then she went in search of Stacey and found her curled up in the armchair in Colin's room, fast asleep. Gently she drew a travelling rug close up to her chin, deciding to let her sleep till Iain came. The house was her own now, quiet and warm, all the fear and conflict gone out of it. She sat down by the fire again, replenishing it from time to time with the logs Iain had stacked on the stone hearth. The wind had died and the blizzard no longer hammered against doors and windows. The white, still world outside seemed part of her own waiting for the man who was coming home. His sudden footfall in the room behind her was the first she heard of his return. He must have garaged the jeep before he came in. Slowly she crossed to the kitchen door, but he had reached it first. He stood

looking in at her for a moment, absorbing the comfort of the firelit room, and then swiftly, surely they were in each other's arms. He held her without saying anything at first, burying his fingers in her disordered hair, pressing her head close against him. Then he raised her face to look long and searchingly into her eyes. 'Cathie!' he said at last. And again, with the deepest sigh she had ever heard: ' Cathie!' She offered him her lips, the shining happiness in her eyes veiled for a moment as she waited for his kiss. When his lips found hers they were gentle yet strongly possessive and his arms tightened about her as if he would never let her go. 'I love you,' he said, looking down at her while he still held her. ' Nothing can alter that, Katrina breac, though I've nothing to offer you. Not even Crane.' She put her fingers against his lips, feeling the tensed jaw relax at her touch. 'I told you once that I hadn't come to the glen to be mistress of Crane,' she reminded him shyly. ' That still holds good. When Warren brought me to the castle it didn't matter, but now it does. I love Crane, and I know what it means to you, Iain, but even if you hadn't Dromore to offer me, I'd still love you. I always shall.' He caught her close with a fierceness she could scarcely understand. 'I thought love was over for me,' he said almost savagely, ' but now I know it was never like this.' He drew her towards the fire. ' I meant to do nothing but work—work till I dropped, if need be—but now I see how wrong I was. I fell in love with Pamela when I was twenty years

old. Now I'm twenty-seven. It's a long time to nurse a disillusionment, Cathie. It can sour you in the end.' She didn't ask about Pamela. She didn't want to know, but she had stiffened unconsciously at the mention of his former love. 'I thought you might have heard it in the glen,' he said, smoothing her hair with a gentle hand. ' They all knew about it. They were wonderfully loyal.' 'I know that Pamela was at Crane,' she said, ' but that's all. But if you want me to hear about it, I'd rather you told me, Iain.' 'It doesn't take long to tell.' He put her back into the chair beside the hearth, sitting on the arm with the firelight full on his face. The emotions of these long- dead years were dead now, too. ' I brought Pamela to Crane to meet my people,' he said slowly. ' We had planned to become engaged when I was twenty-one. To me, at that time, she was the dearest thing on earth, lovely beyond imagining and sympathetic and kind. I idolized Pamela as only a boy can. She was everything I had ever dreamed about. My mother was ill at the time and I wanted them to get to know each other. It was—almost as if I knew she hadn't much longer to live, and when she asked me to wait I couldn't understand. It was unthinkable that anyone— especially my mother —couldn't appreciate Pamela at a glance.' His arm tightened about Catherine's shoulders. ' She came back with me to Crane for my coming-of-age. My mother had arranged everything—the house-party, the conventional dinner, the ball afterwards. A good many of our house guests were Pamela's friends; the rest were our neighbours from the surrounding glens. It was a night to remember, and I remembered it in bitterness for six long years.' Catherine reached for his free hand, holding it gently against her cheek.

'Don't go on,' she said. ' It can't matter to us now.' 'No.' He crushed her fingers in his. ' All I hoped was that it might help to explain my attitude to everything and everybody when we first met. I deserved your impatience, Cathie, but my hermit's existence had gone on for so long that I believed it was really how I wanted to live. When Pamela fell from the balcony at Crane I locked these doors against more than a repetition of a tragedy which needn't have happened. I locked them against affection and sympathy and human understanding. No,' he said when she turned to him in horror, ' she didn't die. I thought she might, though. I was frantic. It had been my party. We had been playing a foolish game. Pamela was more daring than most of us. We saw her balancing up there on the parapet and then suddenly she had fallen. It was a summer evening. She lay there in her scarlet chiffon dress like a crumpled flower. My father picked her up and they took her to Edinburgh. I visited the hospital every day for three months, and when she was able to walk again we brought her back to Crane. I begged her to marry me, but my mother died and there was a big upheaval. We decided to wait. I spent my days thanking God for Pamela and Pamela's recovery, and then, suddenly, my father was killed in an accident. When I told Pamela that Crane might have to go, that we had crippling debts to meet and that the alternative was Dromore, she slipped through my fingers like quicksilver. All the time, I believe, there had been someone else.' His jaw hardened as he looked into the fire. ' He had tons of money, but he hadn't Crane. Pamela imagined I had both. When she found she would have to work for Crane—long and weary years—she told me the truth. Her marriage to Conrad Lester was announced a month later, in London.' His bitterness was no longer evident. He had reopened the past for her benefit so that she should know the truth from the one person who could tell it to her in its entirety, and she thanked him for it. 'It's so long ago,' she said. ' Pamela must have been very young.'

'She was nineteen when I first met her. We were almost the same age, but it seems she knew far better than I did what she wanted from life.' He stood up, pulling her gently to her feet. ' There it all is, Katrina breac, whatever you make of it. I couldn't let Crane go to please Pamela. Even to please Pamela!' 'Never let it go!' She put her arms about him ' Keep it, Iain. Keep it for us I We'll win it back some day.' He kissed her passionately on the mouth. 'That's all I wanted to hear you say,' he told her. ' It won't be easy, Cathie. We could have another ten years to serve at Dromore, but we can do it—together.' 'They'll be happy years,' she said from the shelter of his arms. ' Happy if we share everything.'

CHAPTER XI 'Ten years is a long time,' Elizabeth Harper observed when they communicated their hopes to her two days later in the hall of the castle. ' You haven't got much of a business head, have you, Iain?' She glanced at him tentatively. 'I'm a farmer. A hill farmer.' Smilingly he emphasized the difference. ' Big business never attracted me.' 'So it would seem.' She appeared to be considering some plan or other which had crystallized in her mind. ' It can be other people's life and joy, of course.' 'We can't all be tycoons,' he reminded her. 'But we can be sensible.' She signed to Catherine to pour their tea. ' Why have you consistently turned down Flora's idea of a rest hostel at Dromore? It would pay its way from the word "go". I know it, and so does Flora.' She held up her hand to silence him. 'We're not suggesting you should run it or build the new chair-lift, either,' she told him. 'That would be our problem at Glen Larig.' '"Ours"?' he queried. 'Flora and I are going into business together.' Mrs Harper threw her bombshell and rushed on without waiting for its effect. ' I just couldn't give up, I suppose. I've worked and schemed and planned all my life and I just can't retire. It was very nice of Warren to think about it, but I guess he knows how it is. I must have a finger in the commercial pie!' 'I can't see what this has to do with Crane,' Iain said, although he was beginning to. ' I couldn't put any money into a business venture just now.'

'We don't want your money,' Elizabeth told him. ' What we need is Dromore. I'm willing to buy it from you. Then you can come back here to the castle and keep sheep as easily from here as you can from Dromore. We wouldn't want the hill pasturage. Just the use of it for pony-trekking in the summer and the odd ski-trail in the winter. All the best slopes are over on the far side of the Pass, but there are a few here, and your land would be a link with the Sma' Glen. It's perfectly simple, Iain,' she added persuasively. ' I wonder you didn't consider it before.' Iain looked across the hearth at Catherine. All their future lay in the decision they were about to make. Then, suddenly, his grey eyes lifted to the line of portraits above their heads, to the stern faces so like his own. 'We could do it,' he said. ' We will do it!' 'Good! Then that's settled.' Elizabeth was delighted. ' I'll tell Warren and we can go into details as soon as you like. He'll be going back to Canada.' She glanced at Catherine with a hint of regret in her eyes. ' I never did think he would settle here for any length of time,' she added. ' He planned everything for me.' 'Will you stay at Dromore?' Ian asked. 'Occasionally.' Elizabeth dropped her second bombshell. ' Janet is going up there to run it for me. She has always fancied that sort of thing, and she's an excellent housekeeper. You won't have any difficulty getting help at Crane,' she added, turning to Catherine. ' The laird always had the glen's loyalty, which is as it should be.' Catherine got up to bring more hot water as Colin limped into the hall, followed by an attentive Stacey.

'Let me do it,' Iain offered, taking the jug from her. ' I want to have a word with Janet, and I know my way about!' 'Come and sit here, Colin,' Elizabeth said. 'You'll be able to stretch your leg better.' She made room for him on the chesterfield, leaving Stacey to sit on a leather pouffe at his feet. ' There's no need for you to go back tomorrow if you don't want to go,' she assured him. ' You seem to be hobbling much better!' Colin looked regretful. 'I'm afraid I'll have to go,' he said. ' My parents are rather worried, I think, and the University term starts next week. I can't really pretend I'm on the sick list, but'—he took his courage in both hands—' I'd like to come back if I may?' 'Of course you can come back, just, any time.' Elizabeth's generosity embraced them all. ' When do you sit your finals?' 'In June.' The smile deepened in his eyes. ' I hope to pass, and then -' He paused, looking down at Stacey's fair head. 'We're going steady,' she announced, looking across at her mother for her approval. ' Colin should get a job right away and we could get married as soon as I'm eighteen. Warren thinks it might be a good idea.' 'Is this another engagement?' Elizabeth asked with a contented sigh. Stacey knelt to put her arms about her neck. 'Yes, please!' she said. ' You know you love them! We'll wait, of course, until after Cathie and Iain get married. I want to be a bridesmaid just once before I'm a bride!' Elizabeth told them about Dromore.

'I knew it!' Stacey cried. ' I knew you wouldn't settle down to doing nothing.' She looked about her with a hint of disappointment. ' I'm kind of sorry we're leaving Crane,' she said. ' It's been fun being here.' When Warren made his appearance she rushed to tell him the news he already knew. 'We're buying Dromore and going into business and Colin and I are going to be engaged after Cathie gets married and I'm going to be her bridesmaid. At least, I think I am.' She smiled in Catherine's direction. ' Everything's so new, isn't it?' she rushed on. ' Two engagements, and Dromore going to be a ski hostel, and Mother going to be Flora's partner over at Glen Larig! Things happen so quickly here!' Warren smiled as his eyes met Catherine's across the tea table. 'I think they do,' he said, half-ruefully. ' And nobody seems to remember that I've lost—a very efficient secretary.' 'You'll find another one,' Stacey assured him with her usual confidence. Warren was still looking at Catherine. 'Shall I?' he said. ' I hope so.' When Iain returned from the kitchen he shook him by the hand, not warmly but without rancour. 'I guess this is the right idea,' he said. ' We didn't really belong here. Crane needs a MacAllister.' He glanced up at the row of portraits. ' I couldn't have lived with these fellows, and it would take a braver man than I am to remove them. They've been hanging there for so long I guess they own the place!'

Catherine went to the door with Iain when he had taken his leave of Mrs Harper. The snow still lay white and deep over everything—the hills and the glen and the quiet burns. Beyond the pines they could see the loch gleaming silvery-white in the bright starlight. It wasn't really dark, and she walked with him round the buttress of the tower to where he had parked the jeep. 'You're very quiet,' he said, putting his arm about her. 'Happily quiet.' She rested her head against his shoulder. ' Sometimes I find myself wondering if it isn't all a dream.' He stopped to take her in his arms. 'A very persistent dream,' he said before he bent to kiss her on the lips. ' Cathie, I've got so much I can hardly believe it. You and Crane—the chance to work for Crane! I never thought it would happen like this.' He looked up towards the Pass. ' And Dromore has made it all possible. If you had never come to Dromore and made it look like a home again, never let me see how much I was missing, I might have been brooding up there still. That night when I came back from Inverlarig and saw you standing in the firelight convinced me finally of how wrong I had been. Nobody should live in the past nor nurse a disappointment too long.' 'It's over now,' she said, her eyes meeting his in the kind starlight. ' We've got so much to do that we'll never be able to look back again.'