t she almost
screamed, and dropped her work; then--a true Moore--controlled herself
and sat feigning to work, yet watching all the while.

It was M'Adam, she recognized that: the face pale in its framework
of black; the hair lying dank and dark on his forehead; and the white
eyelids blinking, slow, regular, horrible. She thought of the stories
she had heard of his sworn vengeance on her father, and her heart stood
still, though she never moved. At length with a gasp of relief she
discerned that the eyes were not directed on her. Stealthily following
their gaze, she saw they rested on the Shepherds' Trophy; and on the Cup
they remained fixed, immovable, while she sat motionless and watched.

An hour, it seemed to her, elapsed before they shifted their direction,
and wandered round the room. For a second they dwelt upon her; then the
face withdrew into the night.

Maggie told no one what she had seen. Knowing well how terrible her
father was in his anger, she deemed it wiser to keep silence. While as
for David M'Adam, she would never speak to him again!

And not for a moment did that young man surmise whence his father came
when, on the night in question, M'Adam returned to the Grange, chuckling
to himself. David was growing of late accustomed to these fits of
silent, unprovoked merriment; and when his father began giggling and
muttering to Red Wull, at first he paid no heed.

"He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet. There's many a slip
twixt Cup and lip--eh, Wullie, he! he!" And he made allusion to the
flourishing of the wicked and their fall; ending always with the same
refrain: "He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet."

In this strain he continued until David, his patience exhausted, asked
roughly:

"What is't yo' mumblin' aboot? Wha is it yo'll beat, you and yer
Wullie?"

The lad's tone was as contemptuous as his words. Long ago he had cast
aside any semblance of respect for his father.

M'Adam only rubbed his knees and giggled.

"Hark to the dear lad, Wullie! Listen hoo pleasantly he addresses his
auld dad!" Then turning on his son, and leering at him: "What is it,
ye ask? Wha should it be but the Black Killer? Wha else is there I'd be
wushin' to hurt?"

"The Black Killer!" echoed the boy, and looked at his father in
amazement.

Now David was almost the only man in Wastrel-dale who denied Red Wull's
identity with the Killer. "Nay," he said once; "he'd kill me, given half
a chance, but a sheep-