knighthood that he might abide near that dainty form and
witching face. He tortured himself with the thought that Maud would
listen to others as she had listened to him; that she would practise
on others that heart-breaking slow droop and quick uplift of the
eyelashes which he knew so well. Who might not be at hand to aid her
to blow out her lamp when the guards were set of new in the corridors
of Thrieve?

"Mother," the Earl answered, "David speaks good sense. He will never
make a man or a Douglas if he is to bide here within this warded isle.
He must venture forth into the world of men and women, and taste a
man's pleasures and chance a man's dangers like the rest."

"But are you certain that you will bring him safe back again to me?"
said his mother, wistfully. "Remember, he is so young and eke so
reckless."

"Nay," cried David, eagerly, "I am no younger than my cousin James was
when he fought the strongest man in Scotland, and I warrant I could
ride a course as well as Hughie Douglas of Avondale, though William
chose him for the tourney and left me to bite my thumbs at home."

The lady sighed and looked at her sons, one of them but a youth and
the other no more than a boy.

"Was there ever a Douglas yet who would take any advice but from his
own desire?" she said, looking down at them like a douce barn-door fowl
who by chance has reared a pair of eaglets. "Lads, ye are over strong
for your mother. But I will not sleep nor eat aright till I have my
David back again, and can see him riding his horse homeward through
the ford."

CHAPTER XXVIII

ON THE CASTLE ROOF

Maud Lindesay parted from Sholto upon the roof of the keep. She had
gone up thither to watch the cavalcade ride off where none could spy
upon her, and Sholto, noting the flutter of white by the battlements,
ran up thither also, pretending that he had forgotten something,
though he was indeed fully armed and ready to mount and ride.

Maud Lindesay was leaning over the battlements of the castle, and,
hearing a step behind her, she looked about with a start of apparent
surprise.

The after dew of recent tears still glorified her eyes.

"Oh, Sholto," she cried, "I thought you were gone; I was watching for
you to ride away. I thought--"

But Sholto, seeing her disorder, and having little time to waste, came
quickly forward and took her in his arms without apology or prelude,
as is (they say) wisest in such cases.

"Maud," he said, his utt