now, for I have played with her. I love
her. Therefore you will not hurt us. I am sure you will not hurt us.
You are going to send us back in a ship to our own country, because it
is lonely here where Maud and I know no one!"

The marshal smiled upon her his inhuman inscrutable smile. He leaned
against a pillar of strangely twisted design, and contemplated the two
victims at his ease.

"Life is sweet to you, is it not?" he said at last; "you are truly
happy, being young, and so have no need to be made young again."

"Oh, but I am very old," cried the Maid, gaining some confidence from
the quiet of his voice, "I am nearly eight years old. And our Maudie
here, she is--oh, a dreadful age! She is very, very old!"

"You would not like to die?" suggested Gilles de Retz, with a certain
soft insinuation.

"Oh, no," said Margaret Douglas, "I am going to live long and
long--till every one in the world loves me. I am going to help every
one to get what he most desires. And you know I can, for I shall be
very rich. And if what they say is true, and I am Princess of
Galloway, I shall marry and be a very great lady. But I shall never
marry any one who is not a Douglas."

The marshal nodded.

"I do not think that you shall marry any one who is not a Douglas!" he
said, with a certain grave and not discourteous irony in his tones.

"Yes," the little Maid went on. She had lost all fear in the very act
of speech. "Yes, and Maud, she is going to marry Sholto--and they will
be very happy, for they love each other so. I know it, for she told me
to-night just before you sent for us to come to your feast. That was
kind of you to remember us, though it was past bed-time. But now, good
marshal, you will send us back, will you not? Now, look kind to-night.
You will be glad afterwards that you were good to two maids who never
harmed you, but are ready to love you if you prove kind to them."

"Hush, Margaret," said Maud Lindesay. "It is useless to speak such
words to such a man."

The Marshal de Retz turned sharply to her.

"Ah," he said, with a curious bite in his speech, "then, my young
lady, you would not love me, even if I were to let you go!"

"I should hate and abominate you for ever and ever, even if you helped
me into Paradise!" quoth Maud Lindesay, giving him defiance in a full
eye-volley.

"So," he said calmly, "I am indeed likely to help you into Paradise
this very night. That is, unless Saint Peter of the Keys makes up h