ferent story from Buchan, from the
Grahams, the Halls. Revenge is sweet--as your mother found it.'

'The murderers had only their deserts.'

Louis shrugged his shoulders, 'That is as their sons may think.'

'No one would be so dastardly as to wreak vengeance on two young
helpless maids,' cried Margaret. 'Oh! sir, help me; what think you?'

'Madame knows better than I do the spirit alike of her sisters and of
her own countrymen.'

'Nay, nay, Monsieur, husband, do but help me! My poor sisters in this
strange land! You, who are wiser than all, tell me what can have become
of them?'

'What can I say, Madame? Love--love of the minstrel kind seems to run
in the family. You all have supped full thereof at Nanci. If report said
true, there was a secret lover in their suite. What so likely as that
the May game should have become earnest?'

'But, sir, we are accountable. My sisters were entrusted to us.'

'Not to me,' said Louis. 'If the boy, your brother, expected me to
find husbands and dowers for a couple of wild, penniless, feather-pated
damsels-errant, he expected far too much. I know far too well what are
Scotch manners and ideas of decorum to charge myself with the like.'

'Sir, do you mean to insult me?' demanded Margaret, rising to the full
height of her tall stature.

'That is as Madame may choose to fit the cap,' he said, with a bow; 'I
accuse her of nothing,' but there was an ironical smile on his thin lips
which almost maddened her.

'Speak out; oh, sir, tell me what you dare to mean!' she said, with a
stamp of her foot, clasping her hands tightly. He only bowed again.

'I know there are evil tongues abroad,' said Margaret, with a desperate
effort to command her voice; 'but I heeded them no more than the midges
in the air while I knew my lord and husband heeded them not! But--oh!
say you do not.'

'Have I said that I did?'

'Then for a proof--dismiss and silence that foul-slandering wretch,
Jamet de Tillay.'

'A true woman's imagination that to dismiss is to silence,' he laughed.

'It would show at least that you will not brook to have your wife
defamed! Oh! sir, sir,' she cried, 'I only ask what any other husband
would have done long ago of his own accord and rightful anger. Smile not
thus--or you will see me frenzied.'

'Smiles best befit woman's tears,' said Louis coolly. 'One moment for
your sisters, the next for yourself.'

'Ah! my sisters! my sisters! Wretch that I am, to have thought of