I insisted.

“Do I not seem so?” she asked, smiling.

“Eighteen at most — save for the — sadness — in your eyes that now and then surprises me — if it be sadness that I read there.”

“Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned — a knowledge that means sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so plainly?”

“Sometimes,” I said, A faint sound from below arrested our attention.

Lois whispered:

“It is Mrs. Rannock weeping. She often weeps like that at night. And so would I, Euan, had I beheld the horrors which this poor thing was born to look upon — God comfort her!