t. I will not be able to wear a kilt with an easy
conscience for some time to come."

"My faith! Baron, that were a penance out of all proportion!" said Count
Victor, laughing. "If you nearly gave me the key of the Olympian meadows
there, 'tis I that have brought these outlaws about your ears."

"What beats me is that they should make so much ado about a trifle."

"A trifle!" said Count Victor. "True, in a sense. The wretch but died.
We must all die; we all know it, though none of us believe it."

"I am glad to say that after all you only wounded yon Macfarlane; so
Petullo learned but yesterday, and I clean forgot to tell you sooner."

Montaiglon looked mightily relieved.

"So!" said he; "I shall give a score of the best candles to St. Denys--if
I remember when I get home again. You could not have told me such good
tidings a moment too soon, dear M. le Baron, though of course a small
affair like that would naturally escape one's memory."

"He was as good as dead, by all rumour; but being a thief and an
Arroquhar man, he naturally recovered: and now it's the oddest thing
in the world that an accident of the nature, that is all, as Black Andy
well must know, in the ordinary way of business, should bring about so
much _fracas_."

"It was part of my delusion," said Count Victor, "to fancy Mungo not
entirely innocent. As you observed, he opened the door with an excess of
hospitality."

"Yes, that was droll," confessed Doom, reflectively. "That was droll,
indeed; but Mungo hates the very name of Arroquhar, and all that comes
from it."

"Except our Annapla," suggested Olivia, smiling.

"Oh, except Annapla, of course!" said her father. "He's to marry her to
avert her Evil Eye."

"And is she a Macfarlane?" asked Montaiglon, surprised.

"No less," replied Doom. "She's a cousin of Andy's; but there's little
love lost between them."

"Speaking of bats!" thought Count Victor, but he did not hint at his new
conclusions. "Well, I am glad," said he; "they left me but remorse last
time; this time here's a souvenir," and he showed the button.

It was a silver chamfered lozenge, conspicuous and unforgettable.

"Stolen gear, doubtless," guessed the Baron, looking at it with
indifference. "Silver buttons are not rife between here and the pass of
Balmaha."

"Let me see it, please?" said Olivia.

She took it in her hand but for a moment, turned slightly aside to look
more closely at it in the sconce-light, paled with som