m my lord."

It will not do to say to what our gallant Sholto condemned all
tricksome queans and spiteful damosels in whose eyes dwelt mischief
brimming over, and whose tongues spoke softest words that yet stung
and rankled like fairy arrows dipped in gall and wormwood.

But since the man stood there and repeated, "I judge the message to be
one from my lord," Sholto could do no less than hastily pull on his
doublet and again betake himself along the corridor to the foot of the
stair.

When he arrived there he saw no one, and was about to depart again as
he had come, when the head of Maud Lindesay appeared round the upper
spiral looking more distractedly mischievous and bewitching than ever,
her head all rippling over with dark curls and her eyes fairly
scintillating light. She nodded to him and leaned a little farther
over, holding tightly to the baluster meanwhile.

"Well," said Sholto, roughly, "what are my lord's commands for me, if,
indeed, he has charged you with any?"

"He bids me say," replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps
are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in
the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night--that is, if so menial a
service shame not your knighthood."

"Pshaw!" muttered Sholto, "my lord said naught of the sort."

"Well then," said Maud Lindesay, smiling down upon him with an
expression innocent and sweet as that of an angel on a painted
ceiling, "you will be kind and come and help us all the same?"

"That I will not!" said Sholto, stamping his foot like an ill-tempered
boy.

"Yes, you will--because Margaret asks you?"

_"I will not!"_

"Then because _I_ ask you?"

Spite of his best endeavours, Sholto could not take his eyes from the
girl's face, which seemed fairer and more desirable to him now than
ever. A quick sob of passion shook him, and he found words at last:

"Oh, Maud Lindesay, why do you treat thus one who loves you with all
his heart?"

The girl's face changed. The mischief died out of it, and something
vague and soft welled up in her eyes, making them mistily grey and
lustrous. But she only said: "Sholto, it is growing dark already! It
is time the tapers were trimmed!"

Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know,
there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her
wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk,
when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the s