If
that does not please your ladyship, you are ill to serve. And I would
not just be saying that the game is finished altogether even yet, so
long as I know where to lay my fingers on the Frenchman."

She plucked her hands free, and ran from him without another word, glad
for once of the sanctuary of a husband's door.

CHAPTER XXXVIII -- A WARNING

Petullo was from home. It was in such circumstances she found the
bondage least intolerable. Now she was to find his absence more than a
pleasant respite; it gave her an opportunity of warning Doom. She had
scarce made up her mind how he should be informed of the jeopardies that
menaced his guest, whose skaithless departure with Olivia was even, from
her point of view, a thing wholly desirable, when the Baron appeared
himself. It was not on the happiest of errands he came down on the first
day of favouring weather; it was to surrender the last remnant of his
right to the home of his ancestors. With the flourish of a quill he
brought three centuries of notable history to a close.

"Here's a lesson in humility, Mr. Campbell," said he to Petullo's clerk.
"We builded with the sword, and fell upon the sheep-skin. Who would
think that so foolish a bird as the grey goose would have Doom and its
generations in its wing?"

He had about his shoulders a plaid that had once been of his tartan,
but had undergone the degradation of the dye-pot for a foolish and
tyrannical law; he threw it round him with a dignity that was half
defiance, and cast his last glance round the scene of his sorriest
experiences--the dusty writing-desks, the confusion of old letters; the
taped and dog-eared, fouled, and forgotten records of pithy causes;
and, finally, at the rampart of deed-chests, one of which had the name
"Drimdarroch" blazoned on it for remembrance if he had been in danger of
forgetting.

"And is it yourself, Baron?" cried a woman's voice as he turned to go.
"I am so sorry my husband is from home."

He turned again with his hat off for the lady who had an influence on
his fate that he could never guess of.

"It is what is left of me, ma'am," said he. "And it is more than is like
to be seen of me in these parts for many a day to come," but with no
complaint in his expression.

"Ah," said she, "I know; I know! and I am so sorry. You cannot leave
to-day of any day without a glass of wine for _deoch-an-doruis_."

"I thank you, ma'am," said Doom, "but my boat is at the quay, and M