He seized his hat and stick and darted to the door. "You talk to her,
Findlay!" he cried, and disappeared.

Juliet and Mr. Findlay were left confronting one another.

"That will be the best plan," the lawyer repeated. "Think it over, Miss
Byrne. I am sure you would enjoy the visit to Scotland. Inverashiel is a
most interesting old place, both historically and for the sake of its
beautiful scenery. A week or two of Highland air could not fail to be of
benefit to your health, even if nothing further came of it, so to speak."

"I should love it," Juliet said again. "But, Mr. Findlay, I don't know
Lord Ashiel, or hardly know him. How can I go off and stay with someone I
never met before to-day?"

"The circumstances are unusual," said the lawyer. "I fancy Lord Ashiel is
anxious to lose no time. He is in bad health, poor fellow. I am afraid he
will worry himself a good deal if you cannot make up your mind to go."

"You see," said Juliet, troubled, "I know nothing about him. I don't know
what my father--I mean, Sir Arthur would say."

"I am sure your father would have no objection whatever to your making
friends with Lord Ashiel," Mr. Findlay assured her. "He is one of the
most respectable, the most domesticated of peers. Not very cheerful
company, perhaps, but no one in the world can justly say a word against
him in any way. He has had a sad time lately; his wife and only child
died within a month of each other, only two or three years ago. They had
been married quite a short time. Since then, his sister, Mrs. Haviland,