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Judith had little appetite for a celebration lunch, but she tried not to dampen Barbara’s enthusiasm, although she wondered how much Andy really shared his wife’s eager anticipation.

“There’s one point, Judith,” Barbara said later. “This move of ours affects you. You probably want a little time to make your own decision whether to stay here or leave with us. It was sweet of you to stay for my benefit, but you don’t have to fall in with all our plans. If you come with us, you’ll be welcome in whatever home we have as long as you like. But now that you’re making such a successful career in Cruban, you might like to stay here for a while longer.”

Judith was too stunned at present to make any decision. Only afterwards did it occur to her that Barbara was no longer so prejudiced against Kylsaig and the rigours of its winter climate.

“The other thing is that we don't want any of this discussed at home
yet
,” Barbara continued. “Later on, we’ll tell the children. Actually, I’m not worried about Susan, but Robbie will be disappointed.”

Judith prevented herself from shrieking the word “
Disappointed'!”
the boy would be heartbroken. He looked upon school as a necessary evil and a bothersome interruption of his farm jobs. He chafed at the winter darkness when, except for week-ends, all his daylight hours were spent at school.

On Sunday, Judith walked across the hilly centre of Kylsaig, familiar now with the sheep tracks and rough paths. Soon she must make up her mind on this recurring problem—to stay or go. She was tugged both ways. She enjoyed working at Dalkeith’s and realised that in London or elsewhere it would be many years before she would have as much say in the design department as Mr. Cameron allowed her. However long the day, there was a more restful atmosphere on this west coast and its islands, without the useless urgency of rushing from one place to another in the minimum of time.

Even travelling to and from work had its novelty. At first she had crossed between Kylsaig and the mainland by ferry, but when Andy bought the
Gazelle
from Stuart, he often took her direct to Cruban from the new slipway that Barbara still called “Stuart’s little pier thing.”

Robbie, too, was expert at handling the motor, but he was not allowed to run the boat except in clear daylight. He would miss pottering about in boats, especially as his father had promised that during this coming summer, Robbie would be allowed to sail.

That was something else that Judith would never learn now. Stuart had once promised to give her lessons in sailing, as well as rowing. “The
Gazelle’s
a stout old tub,” he had said. “A safe boat—as long as you can swim.”

If she stayed on after Barbara and Andy left, she would have to live in Cruban, probably in a small boarding-house glad of a permanent visitor.

From the summit of Kylsaig now she could see the snowy tops of Ben Nevis and Glencoe, nearer and in front of them grey-purple hills and the dark slate blue water of the Sound.

Suddenly it occurred to her that the island was rejecting her, as it had rejected Andy and Barbara, but not Robbie.
Go away where you belong. This is not the place.

She nodded to herself. There was really nothing to keep her here. When Mairi and Stuart were married—her mind flinched from the thought, but she forced herself to visualise the whole picture—then surely it would be better for her to leave, instead of torturing herself with constant reminders of the might-have-been. One must take an adult view of a one-sided romance that had ended in smoke.

On the way home she met Andy with Kim, the black sheepdog.

“What will you do with Kim when you leave?” she asked Andy.

“Stuart will take him. He says he can always find homes for dogs somewhere among his men. Possibly the new tenant here will be glad of a dog familiar with the island.”

Kim looked up, aware, as all dogs are, that he was being talked about. He, too, would be displaced.

“What made you come to this rather sudden decision, Andy?” she asked.

Andy sighed. “Oh, a number of things. Barbara hasn’t nagged me into it, although I know you think so. She’s been very patient, and I think that’s partly due to you. But I can see, taking the long-term view, that she’s probably right. The children need education and I couldn’t afford to send them to good boarding schools. Then there’s even the difficulty about the school here. Mairi has been told that it’s likely to close at the end of the summer. Not economic, they say.”

“Oh, I haven’t heard that.”

“No. It’s hush-hush for the moment, so don’t talk about it. Stuart’s doing all he can with the county council and bringing pressure on the education committees to keep it open. As he says, it makes nonsense of his work of trying to keep Kylsaig tenanted and habitable if the school closes.”

“A blow to his hopes, that would be,” agreed Judith.

“Robbie would be going to the mainland school next year when he’s eleven, but it’s tough on the very small ones to be ferried over to Cruban in all weathers,” he said.

Judith could see that although closing the school might not now matter very much to Mairi, Stuart would fight hard for the principle.

“I don’t deny,” Andy went on, “that Kylsaig has many advantages I shall miss. No traffic jams. Only the noise of the sea and gulls and lambs crying. Plenty of water to potter about in boats when there’s time, which isn’t often. The great disadvantage is lack of money—my holding is too small to be a real financial success—and then I suppose I’ve come to farming too late in life. Or else too early.” He laughed. “When I retire, I might think about it again. I love Barbara very much—and I want to give her the life she’s happiest in. If I can’t provide that for her, then I’m a failure.”

Graham’s name had never been mentioned, but Judith was certain that he must have hinted to Andy Barbara’s intention to leave her husband.

Judith wondered if Graham’s influence had secured Andy’s new job. But she would not belittle her brother-in-law by making him either admit it or protest that he had gained the post on his own merits.

She put it to Barbara, though, in a discreet moment when everyone else was out of the way.

“As it happens, Graham had nothing to do with it. But if he had, I shouldn’t think any less of Andy for accepting,” was Barbara’s emphatic reply.

“How long d’you think it will be before you leave?” Judith asked.

“Andy wants to start his new job in April, so I’d like to get away by the end of February. Have you decided yet about coming or staying?”

“Yes,” Judith answered slowly. “I’ll come to London with you. There’s no real point in staying here.”

“M’m. Funny thing—I thought you’d stay on.” But Judith was not going to be involved in persuasive arguments to remain in Scotland after she had screwed herself up to leave. She walked abruptly out of the room.

At Dalkeith’s there was the mid-February fashion display to be prepared, but Judith thought it only fair to tell Mr. Cameron as soon as it was over that she would be leaving.

“Aye, I will be sorry that you are going, but no doubt you would be lonely here without your sister and her family. And you will be finding many opportunities for new posts in London.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cameron. I’ve enjoyed working here. The fabrics and local materials have opened a whole new world to me. If I work in London, I shall come up here sometimes and prowl around the tweed mills and visit some of the weavers.”

Mr. Cameron smiled at her. “Aye. When you came here and Mr. Mundon told us you were a promising designer, we did not know what you could do, but you have well justified his recommendation.”

Judith’s cheeks drained of colour. “Mr. Graham Mundon recommended me to you?” she echoed.

Mr. Cameron nodded.

“I didn’t know that.” She held herself in control until she could escape from the room. As soon as she had finished work, she visited the Roxburgh Hotel and asked for Mr. Mundon.

She was shown into his private office. He rose and greeted her with a brilliant smile.

“I’m not staying long enough to sit down, Mr. Mundon,” she told him angrily. “I merely came to warn you not to interfere with any other job I may try to get in London or elsewhere. I’ve only just found out that Dalkeith’s took me because you asked them to, but in future, please keep out of my affairs.”

At another time, his expression of injured dismay might have been comic. “My dear Judith, there’s no need to go off the deep end like that. I only tried to help you.”

“Unasked. It may have been kind of you, but I prefer to be independent.”

For a few seconds they faced each other like two mettlesome horses. Then his eyes softened and he smiled. “In these parts, Judith, they’d call you a bonnie fighter. And so you are. But remember that if you’d known I put in a word for you at Dalkeith’s, you would have refused the job—and there’s no other place in Cruban where you’d have had any scope at all.”

“Yes, I admit that,” she conceded. “But let me do my own job-hunting from now on.”

“I’m sorry you’re leaving. Kylsaig won’t be the same without you and Barbara.”

“Why did you let Andy know about Barbara’s moment of weakness? Couldn’t you have spared him that?”

“Why should I? I merely told him he might lose his charming wife if he insisted on staying here.”

“And that helped you to keep down your price for his farm.”

He looked at her in admiration. “You have a shrewd sense of business logic. Andy’s property was little use to me without the foreshore rights, and I found that those are owned by Garranmure.”

When she arrived home, Judith sought Barbara in the living room. “You might have told me that I owed my job at Dalkeith’s to the all-powerful Graham Mundon,” she began mildly.

“Job?” murmured Barbara vaguely. “Oh, don’t be tiresome. We’ve other matters to worry about. Robbie has run away.”

“Run away? You mean—disappeared?”

Barbara nodded. “He must have gone before lunch. I didn’t miss him until then. It was all my fault.” She leaned her head on her arms.

Judith, alarmed but instantly sympathetic, asked, “Was there a reason to make him do this, do you think?”

Barbara lifted a distressed face. “I told him we were leaving Kylsaig.”

“But you said nobody was to mention it yet.”

“I know. I didn’t want him or Susan to know until almost the last minute, but this morning, as it was Saturday, he was in the garden—you know how he loves that kitchen patch. He was measuring off a plot for potatoes. He told me to remind Andy to get the seed potatoes, soon. Then he asked me if I liked Jerusalem artichokes. He’d read about them in a gardening book. I
had
to tell him—then. I couldn’t let the poor child plant things when he’ll never be here to see them grow.

“Oh, Barbara, I understand, truly,” Judith murmured, putting her arms around her sister. “Perhaps he should have been told sooner—oh, I don’t know. Where’s Andy?”

“On the mainland, making enquiries. He’ll telephone whenever he can, in case Robbie has come back.”

Judith rose from her knees. “Does Susan know?”

“Yes. She’s in bed.”

“Let me make some tea for all of us. Then I’ll take Kim with me and search the island while Andy’s on the mainland.”

After a couple of hours’ search, Judith met Mr. McKinnon.

“No news of Robbie yet?” he asked.

“I haven’t heard anything yet.” She told him the area of Kylsaig she had already worked over and, together, with Kim bounding ahead, sniffing in rock holes or grassy hollows and unnecessarily disturbing other men’s sheep, the man and girl tried every possible hiding place.

At three in the morning, completely exhausted, Judith returned home. Barbara was huddled on the settee, nursing Susan, who had cried herself to sleep.

“I brought her downstairs,” Barbara explained. “I felt so terrified, so alone. Andy telephoned an hour ago—no news.”

Judith’s thoughts flashed back to the night when Barbara had disappeared, and by some telepathic means, Barbara must have been thinking along the same lines. “Now I know what Andy must have gone through—when I went away. But this is an awful punishment.”

“Go to bed, Barbara, and take Susan with you. I’ll stay down here and keep Kim indoors. I’ll be here if Andy comes back or telephones.”

But morning came and there was still nothing.

“D’you think Stuart knows?” Judith asked, while Barbara paced restlessly from room to room.

“I suppose so.”

“I’ll find out if he can help.” But Stuart was out when Judith telephoned his house. The rest of the family was at church, but the housekeeper would pass on the message.

Judith busied herself cooking a light lunch. At least it was something to occupy her and Barbara needed food.

“If Robbie’s on the mainland, he must either have taken
Gazelle
or the ferry,” Judith argued. “Has Andy gone in the
Gazelle
?”

“I suppose he must have done.”

“Then somebody must have taken Robbie in the ferryboat, or Robbie left the ferry on the other side. He knows how to drive a boat.

“But Mr. Fraser or Donald would have seen him,” Barbara said. “And nobody did see him.”

“Nobody has
said
they saw him, you mean,” Judith corrected. “I’m going to see the McKinnons.”

But young Hector McKinnon declared he knew nothing. Judith was convinced the boy was lying, yet she admired his loyalty to Robbie.

Finally she said, “Listen, Hector, this may be a matter of life or death, so please tell me. Was it this way? You and Robbie went to the mainland in the
Gazelle,
Robbie landed and you brought the boat back to our slipway?”

“I’m not for saying that was the way,” the boy replied stubbornly, but his eyes told her the truth.

“Your father’s going to be very angry with you, Hector. He and I scoured the island all last night, and you could have, saved us that trouble. Loyalty is all very well, but sometimes it’s more important to tell the truth straightaway.”