Duncan was murdered. At which the Englishman, still deferentially,
mistrusted the fact that the murder had been committed there, and
thought that the castle to which Shakespeare probably referred, if he
hadn't invented the murder, too, was farther north, at Cawdor. "You
know," he added playfully, "over there in America you've discovered that
Shakespeare himself was an invention."

This led to some retaliating brilliancy from the young lady, and when
the coach stopped at the next station their conversation had presumably
become interesting enough to justify him in securing a seat nearer to
her. The talk returning to ruins, Miss Elsie informed him that they were
going to see some on Kelpie Island. The consul, from some instinctive
impulse,--perhaps a recollection of Custer's peculiar methods, gave her
a sign of warning. But the Englishman only lifted his eyebrows in a kind
of half-humorous concern.

"I don't think you'd like it, you know. It's a beastly place,--rocks
and sea,--worse than this, and half the time you can't see the mainland,
only a mile away. Really, you know, they oughtn't to have induced you to
take tickets there--those excursion-ticket chaps. They're jolly frauds.
It's no place for a stranger to go to."

"But there are the ruins of an old castle, the old seat of"--began the
astonished Miss Elsie; but she was again stopped by a significant glance
from the consul.

"I believe there was something of the kind there once--something
like your friends the cattle-stealers' castle over on that hillside,"
returned the Englishman; "but the stones were taken by the fishermen for
their cabins, and the walls were quite pulled down."