ct and not bring dishonour upon it."

"Dishonour!" MacDougall said savagely; "the girl has lost her senses.
I tell you he should die if every woman in Scotland had given her
promise for his life. Away with him!" he said to his retainers;
"take him to the chamber at the top of the tower; I will give him
till tomorrow to prepare for death, for by all the saints I swear
he shall hang at daybreak. As to you, girl, go to your chamber,
and let me not see your face again till this matter is concluded.
Methinks a madness must have fallen upon you that you should thus
venture to lift your voice for a Forbes."

The girl burst into tears as Archie was led away. His guards took
him to the upper chamber in a turret, a little room of some seven
feet in diameter, and there, having deprived him of his arms, they
left him, barring and bolting the massive oaken door behind them.

Archie had no hope whatever that Alexander MacDougall would change
his mind, and felt certain that the following dawn would be his
last. Of escape there was no possibility; the door was solid and
massive, the window a mere narrow loophole for archers, two or
three inches wide; and even had he time to enlarge the opening he
would be no nearer freedom, for the moat lay full eighty feet below.

"I would I had died sword in hand!" he said bitterly; "then it
would have been over in a moment."

Then he thought of the girl to whom he had surrendered his sword.

"It was a sweet face and a bright one," he said; "a fairer and
brighter I never saw. It is strange that I should meet her now
only when I am about to die." Then he thought of the agony which
his mother would feel at the news of his death and at the extinction
of their race. Sadly he paced up and down his narrow cell till
night fell. None took the trouble to bring him food--considering,
doubtless, that he might well fast till morning. When it became
dark he lay down on the hard stone, and, with his arm under his head
was soon asleep--his last determination being that if possible
he would snatch a sword or dagger from the hand of those who came
to take him to execution, and so die fighting; or if that were
impossible, he would try to burst from them and to end his life by
a leap from the turret.

He was awakened by a slight noise at the door, and sprang to his
feet instantly, believing that day was at hand and his hour had
come. To his surprise a voice, speaking scarcely above a whisper,
said:

"Hush! m