She stared from the doorway, standing still, motionless, almost the last sight Ake saw, it twisted his heart and then left it numb. Ay, a strange quean, yon. And not for him. He’d thought that glimmer in her eyes a fire that he himself could blow to a flame; and instead ’twas no more than the shine of a stone.

Ewan at last had been fired from Stoddart’s he told to Ellen as they drove from Duncairn in the little car they’d hired for the weekend. Ellen had hired it and sat aside now while Ewan took the wheel and a reckless road through the lorry traffic of Kirrieben in the whistling spatter of December snow. She’d been deep in thought: on the road, on herself, on the week-end that waited them in that inn in Drumtochty. Now she started: Oh Lord, what’ll you do now?

He said he hadn’t the ghost of a notion, something or other, and whistled to himself, dark and intent, growing tall, still slim, with the mouth that was losing its lovely curves, growing hard and narrow she suddenly thought: dismissed that thought—he was just Ewan still.

And some time she’d tell him. But not tonight.

For a while Ewan drove without saying more. Topping the Rise the storm had cleared, the snow no more than an inch or so thick scarred with the passing of buses and lorries, a lorry came clanging to meet them, chains on, and once the little car caught on a slide and skidded and galumphed a wiggling moment till Ewan’s hands switched it into line again. Up here the full blow of the wind was upon them; behind, down in its hollow, Duncairn was a pelting scurry of flakes, browny white as smoke rose to snow and commingled and presently drew down a veil, capped with darkness in the early sunset, over the whitening miles of grey granite. Forward the country wavered and shook, no solid lines as they held the road, a warm, birring dot, tap-tap the hardened flakes on the shield. Ellen snuggled up closer to Ewan and he reached out a hand and gave her a pat and nodded thanks as she put a cigarette between his lips. She lit it and then said Goodness, we’re comfy. Wish we’d a car like this of our own.

He said he’d have to get Selden’s job for that: and he doubted if it would be as easy next time! She asked what on earth he was talking about and he steered through a drifting drove of cattle, head down to the storm, drover behind, and didn’t answer her for a moment. Then he asked her hadn’t she heard the news?—oh no, she hadn’t been down to the Communist local for nearly a couple of weeks, lazy thing. The point is that Selden’s bunked with the funds.

—Selden? With the funds of the Party?

—Every cent, and there was a decent amount. I thought it risky to have him treasurer, and so did Trease, but he’d got in well with the EC in London. Cleared us out to the very last copper.