ney must have winced.

"Friendship!" she cried with infinite disdain. "What can such as you know
of it? You are false as Judas. Did you not begowk my honest brother with
fine words till he and I believed you one of God's noblemen, and when his
back was fairly turned----?"

"I had the best excuse in London for my madness, Aileen," he said with the
wistful little laugh that had gone straight to many a woman's heart.

Her eye flashed and her bosom heaved. The pure girl-heart read him like an
open book.

"And are you thinking me so mean a thing as still to care for your honeyed
words? Believe me, there iss no viper on the braes of Raasay more
detestable to me than you."

I looked to see him show anger, but he nursed his silk-clad ankle with the
same insolent languor. He might have been a priest after the confessional
for all the expression his face wore.

"I like you angry, Aileen. Faith, 'tis worth being the object of your rage
to see you stamp that pretty foot and clench those little hands I love to
kiss. But Ecod! Montagu, the hour grows late. The lady will lose her
beauty sleep. Shall you and I go down-stairs and arrange for a
conveyance?"

He bowed low and kissed his fingers to the girl. Then he led the way out
of the room, fine and gallant and debonair, a villain every inch of him.

"Will you be leaving me?" the girl cried with parted lips.

"Not for long," I told her. "Do not fear. I shall have you out of here in
a jiff," and with that I followed at his heels.

Sir Robert Volney led the way down the corridor to a small room in the
west wing, where flaring, half-burnt candles guttering in their sconces
drove back the darkness. He leaned against the mantel and looked long at
me out of half-closed eyes.

"May I ask to what is due the honour of your presence to-night?" he
drawled at last.

"Certainly."

"Well?"

"I have said you may ask," I fleered rudely. "But for me-- Gad's life! I
am not in the witness box."

He took his snuff mull from his waistcoat pocket and offered it me, then
took a pinch and brushed from his satin coat imaginary grains with
prodigious care.

"You are perhaps not aware that I have the right to ask. It chances that
this is my house."

"Indeed! And the lady we have just left----?"

"----Is, pardon me, none of your concern."

"Ah! I'm not so sure of that."

"Faith then, you'll do well to make sure."

"And--er--Mistress Antoinette Westerleigh?"

"Quite another matter! Yo