"These might be her quarters," he reflected, finding a solace in
the thought. The chill was at once less apparent, a pleasant glow of
companionship came over him. Higher up he held the light to see the
farther into the long passage, and as he did so the flame was puffed
out. It seemed so human a caprice that he drew himself sharply against
the wall, ready by instinct to evade any rush or thrust that was to
follow. And then he smiled at his own alarm at a trick of the wind
through some of La-mond's ill-patched walls, and found his consolation
in the sense of companionship confirmed by sight of a thin line of light
below a door mid-way up the curious passage.

"Annapla, for a louis!" he thought cheerfully. "Thank heaven for one
petticoat in Doom--though that, in truth, is to concede the lady but a
scanty wardrobe." And he hummed softly as he entered his own room.

Wearied exceedingly by the toils of the day, he had no sooner thrown
himself upon the bed than he slept with no need for the lullaby aid of
the sea that rumoured light and soothingly round the rock of Doom.

CHAPTER V -- THE FLAGEOLET

He woke from a dream of pressing danger and impotent flight to marvel
where he was in darkness; fancied himself at first in some wayside
inn mid-way over Scotland, and sat up suddenly with an exclamation of
assurance that he was awake to the suppositious landlord who had called,
for the sense of some sound but stilled on the second of his waking
was strong within him. He fastened upon the vague starlit space of the
little window to give him a clew to his situation. Then he remembered
Doom, and, with the window for his key, built up the puzzle of his room,
wondering at the cause of his alarm.

The wind had risen and sent a loud murmur through the trees along the
coast; the sea, in breakers again, beat on the rock till Doom throbbed.
But there was nothing in that to waken a man who had ridden two days on
coarse roads and encountered and fought with banditti. Decidedly there
was some menace in the night; danger on hard fields had given him blood
alert and unsleeping; the alarum was drumming at his breast. Stealthily
he put out his hand, and it fell as by a fiddler's instinct upon the
spot desired--the hilt of his sword. There he kept it with his breath
subdued, and the alarum severely quelled.

An owl's call sounded on the shore, extremely pensive in its note, and
natural, but unusual in the rhythm of its repetition. It m