im,
making their own affairs secondary to their interest in the state of one
who, it was obvious even to Montaiglon, was deep in their affections.
He realised that a few leagues farther away from the seat of a
Justiciary-General it might have gone ill with the man who had brought
Simon MacTaggart to this condition, for menacing looks were thrown at
him, and more than once there was a significant gesture that made plain
the animosity with which he was regarded. An attempt to escape--if such
had occurred to him--would doubtless have been attended by the most
serious consequences.

Argyll met his Chamberlain with the signs of genuine distress: it was
touching, indeed, to see his surrender to the most fraternal feeling,
and though for a while the Duke's interest in his Chamberlain left him
indifferent to him who was the cause of it, Count Victor could not
but perceive that he was himself in a position of exceeding peril. He
remembered the sinister comments of the Baron of Doom upon the hazards
of an outsider's entrance to the boar's cave, and realised for the first
time what that might mean in this country, where the unhappy wretch
from Appin, whose case had some resemblance to his own, had been
remorselessly made the victim (as the tale went) to world-old tribal
jealousies whose existence was incredible to all outside the Highland
line. In the chill morning air he stood, coatless and shivering, the
high embrasured walls lifting above him, the jabbering menials of the
castle grouped a little apart, much of the language heard savage and
incomprehensible in his ears, himself, as it were, of no significance to
any one except the law that was to manifest itself at any moment.
Last night it had been very gay in this castle, the Duke was the most
gracious of hosts; here, faith! was a vast difference.

"May I have a coat?" he asked a bystander, taking advantage of a bustle
in the midst of which the wounded man was taken into the castle. He got
the answer of a scullion.

"A coat!" exclaimed the man he addressed. "A rope's more like it." And
so, Count Victor, shrugging his shoulders at this impertinence, was left
to suffer the air that bit him to the marrow.

The Chamberlain disposed of, and in the leech's hands, Argyll had the
Frenchman brought to his rooms, still in his shirt-sleeves. The weapon
of his offence was yet in his hand for evidence, had that been wanting,
of an act he was prepared to admit with frankness.

"Well,