bewilderment. "You
should have locked the lady's door as well as mine. 'Art a poor warder
not to think of the possibilities in two cells so close to each other."

"Cells!" cried Mungo, very much disturbed. "Cells! quo' he," looking
chapfallen up the stairway, as if for something there behind his escaped
prisoner.

"And now you will give me the opportunity of paying my respects to your
no doubt adorable lady."

"Eh!" cried Mungo, incredulous. A glow came to his face. He showed the
ghost of a mischievous smile. "Is't that way the lan' lies? Man, ye're
a dour birkie!" said he; "but a wilf u' man maun hae his way, and, if
naething less'll dae ye, jist gang up to yer ain chaumer, and ye'll find
her giein' the Macfarlanes het punch wi' nae sugar till't."

The statement was largely an enigma to Count Victor, but he understood
enough to send him up the stairs with an alacrity that drove Mungo, in
his rear, into silent laughter. Yet the nearer he came to his door the
slower grew his ascent. At first he had thought but of the charming
lady, the vocalist, and the recluse. The Baron's share in the dangerous
mystery of Doom made him less scrupulous than he might otherwise have
been as to the punctilio of a domestic's introduction to one apparently
kept out of his way for reasons best known to his host; and he advanced
to the encounter in the mood of the adventurer, Mungo in his rear
beholding it in his jaunty step, in the fingers that pulled and peaked
the moustachio, and drew forth a somewhat pleasing curl that looked well
across a temple. But a more sober mood overcame him before he had got
to the top of the stair. The shouts of the besieging party outside
had declined and finally died away; the immediate excitement of the
adventure, which with Mungo and the unknown lady he was prepared to
share, was gone. He began to realise that there was something ludicrous
in the incident that had kept him from making her acquaintance half
an hour ago, and reflected that she might well have some doubt of
his courage and his chivalry. Even more perturbing was the sudden
recollection of the amused laughter that had greeted his barefooted
approach to Doom through two or three inches of water, and at the open
door he hung back dubious.

"Step in; it's your ain room," cried Mungo, struggling with his
kettle; "and for the Lord's sake mind your mainners and gie her a guid
impression."

It was the very counsel to make a Montaiglon bold.

He