his hand
towards the door, and the single word "Go!" the Earl dismissed his
body-servant from the room.

Then rising hastily from his chair, he took the trinket in his hand
and carried it to the well-trimmed lamp which stood in a niche that
held a golden crucifix.

The Lord Douglas saw lying in his palm a ring of singular design. The
main portion was formed of the twisting bodies of a pair of snakes,
the jewel work being very cunningly interlaced and perfectly finished.
Their eyes were set with rubies, and between their open mouths they
carried an opal, shaped like a heart. The stone was translucent and
faintly luminous like a moonstone, but held in its heart one fleck of
ruby red, in appearance like a drop of blood. By some curious trick of
light, in whatever position the ring was held, this drop still
appeared to be on the point of detaching itself and falling to the
ground.

Earl William examined it in the flicker of the lamp. He turned it
every way, narrowly searching inside the golden band for a posy, but
not a word of any language could he find engraved upon it.

"I saw the ring upon her hand--I am certain I saw it on her hand!" He
said these words over and over to himself. "It is then no dream that I
have dreamed."

There came a low knocking at the door, a rustling and a whispering
without. Instantly the Earl thrust the ring upon his own finger with
the opal turned inward, and, with the dark anger mark of his race
strongly dinted upon his fair young brow, he faced the unseen
intruder.

"Who is there?" he cried loudly and imperiously.

The door opened with a rasping of the iron latch, and a little girlish
figure clothed from head to foot in a white night veil danced in. She
clapped her hands at sight of him.

"You are come back," she cried; "and you have so fine a gown on too.
But Maud Lindesay says it is very wrong to be out of doors so late,
even if you are Earl of Douglas, and a great man now. Will you never
play at 'Catch-as-catch-can' with David and me any more?"

"Margaret," said the young Earl, "what do you away from your chamber
at all? Our mother will miss you, and I do not want her here to-night.
Go back at once!"

But the little wilful maiden, catching her skirts in her hands at
either side and raising them a little way from the ground, began to
dance a dainty _pas seul_, ending with a flashing whirl and a low bow
in the direction of her audience.

At this William Douglas could not choo