ke it,
there has been no occasion for you to make his personal acquaintance,
and may that continue."

"Why should you say that? Whether he be good or ill, he is a
picturesque figure, a stout fighter, a man who has stood up for his
faith through thick and thin, and, moreover, one of us. I have heard
the things that are said about him, things no woman cares to hear about
a man, but to hear is not to believe, is it? Only," and Marget laughed
quietly, "here am I defending a rank Jacobite to the Georgian commander
of Corgarff Castle, whose business it is to lay that rank Jacobite by
the heels--if he can!"

"Oh, we'll catch him some day," I lightly, rather wryly, observed, "but
his luck does serve him well."

"There's often a reason for luck," answered she; "more in it than just
luck. Now, if a company of soldiers went after a man of resource, like
the Black Colonel, would their chance of catching him not be less if
they had no captain leading them? A boyish lieutenant may have
energetic qualities, but they are hardly likely to be a match for those
of the Black Colonel."

We were getting on to ground perilous for me, because Marget had
evidently heard something and was determined to test it at first hand.
Behind the curiosity there seemed, judging by her tone, to be a fight
going on between friendliness and pique. It is a dangerous mixture for
a man to have to counteract in a woman, because, responding to the
friendliness, he may make admissions which increase the pique.

Therefore I sought to give our talk a turn by saying, "Everybody seems
to know everything there is to be known about the Black Colonel's
escape, so there's an end of it--until next time."

"But, Captain Gordon, although one knows generally, one may still keep
wondering--may one not? A woman always wonders; it is one of her
privileges, and often wonder is kinder to her than certainty."

"Wonder, dear lady, is a hard thing to gratify, being illimitable,
like . . . !

"Like the hills," she caught me up, "when one is alone among
them--alone, or going to meet somebody in the dark of the night, or the
dimness of early morning."

"It would depend on the somebody," I said boldly, facing her boldness,
"and whether it was a man or a woman that was to be met."

"But," she said quite softly, "it must be a man that any other man
would be meeting in these parts, because . . ." She stopped abruptly.

"Because what? Tell me!"

"Nothing; only that ev