lination to luxury) to stay a day or two now and
again at a house like this and mix again with his own equals, instead of
with the rough company of the village inn, or the curious foreign
conspirators with their absence of educated perception and their doubtful
cleanliness. He was a man of domestic instincts and good birth and
breeding, and would have been perfectly at his ease as the master of some
household such as this; with a chapel and a library and a pleasant garden
and estate; spending his days in great leisure and good deeds. And
instead of all this, scarcely by his own choice but by what he would have
called his vocation, he was partly an exile living from hand to mouth in
lodgings and inns, and when he was in his own fatherland, a hunted
fugitive lurking about in unattractive disguises. He sighed again once or
twice. There was silence a moment or two.

There sounded one note from the church tower a couple of hundred yards
away. Lady Maxwell heard it, and looked suddenly up; she scarcely knew
why, and caught her sister's eyes glancing at her. There was a shade of
uneasiness in them.

"It is thundery to-night," said Sir Nicholas. Mr. Stewart did not speak.
Lady Maxwell looked up quickly at him as he sat on her right facing the
window; and saw an expression of slight disturbance cross his face. He
was staring out on to the quickly darkening terrace, past Sir Nicholas,
who with pursed lips and a little frown was stripping off his grapes from
the stalk. The look of uneasiness deepened, and the young man half rose
from his chair, and sat down again.

"What is it, Mr. Stewart?" said Lady Maxwell, and her voice had a ring of
terror in it. Sir Nicholas looked up quickly.

"Eh, eh?"--he began.

The young man rose up and recoiled a step, still staring out.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I have just seen several men pass the
window."

There was a rush of footsteps and a jangle of voices outside in the hall;
and as the four rose up from table, looking at one another, there was a
rattle at the handle outside, the door flew open, and a ruddy
strongly-built man stood there, with a slightly apprehensive air, and
holding a loaded cane a little ostentatiously in his hand; the faces of
several men looked over his shoulder.

Sir Nicholas' ruddy face had paled, his mouth was half open with dismay,
and he stared almost unintelligently at the magistrate. Mr. Stewart's
hand closed on the handle of a knife that lay beside