e childhood with his dead mother's
people, so much I knew. And this was he! Something stung and smarted
in my eyes. I think the sting and smart might have turned to tears if
Father had not been looking down at me.

"Yes. Didn't you see him in his father's pew? But I forgot. You are
too demure to be looking at the young men in preaching--or out of it,
Isobel. You are a model young woman. Odd that the men never like the
model young women! Curse old Malcolm Fraser! What right has he to have
a son like that when I have nothing but a puling girl? Remember,
Isobel, that if you ever meet that young man you are not to speak to
or look at him, or even intimate that you are aware of his existence.
He is your enemy and the enemy of your race. You will show him that
you realize this."

Of course that ended it all--though just what there had been to end
would have been hard to say. Not long afterwards I met Alan Fraser
again, when I was out for a canter on my mare. He was strolling
through the beech wood with a couple of big collies, and he stopped
short as I drew near. I had to do it--Father had decreed--my Shirley
pride demanded--that I should do it. I looked him unseeingly in the
face, struck my mare a blow with my whip, and dashed past him. I even
felt angry, I think, that a Fraser should have the power to make me
feel so badly in doing my duty.

After that I had forgotten. There was nothing to make me remember, for
I never met Alan Fraser again. The years slipped by, one by one, so
like each other in their colourlessness that I forgot to take account
of them. I only knew that I grew older and that it did not matter
since there was nobody to care. One day they brought Father in,
white-lipped and groaning. His mare had thrown him, and he was never
to walk again, although he lived for five years. Those five years had
been the happiest of my life. For the first time I was necessary to
someone--there was something for me to do which nobody else could do
so well. I was Father's nurse and companion; and I found my pleasure
in tending him and amusing him, soothing his hours of pain and
brightening his hours of ease. People said I "did my duty" toward him.
I had never liked that word "duty," since the day I had ridden past
Alan Fraser in the beech wood. I could not connect it with what I did
for Father. It was my delight because I loved him. I did not mind the
moods and the irritable outbursts that drove others from him.

But now h