n
to put her powers to the test. I have seen and heard some droll things
of her."

"That has been my own experience," said Count Victor. "Are you sure
her honesty is on more substantial grounds than her reputation for
witchcraft? I demand your pardon for expressing these suspicions, but
I have reasons. I cannot imagine that the attack of the Macfarlanes was
connived at by your servants, though that was my notion for a little
when Mungo locked me up, for they suffered more alarm at the attack than
I did, and the reason for the attack seems obvious enough. But are you
aware that this woman who commands your confidence is in the practice
of signalling to the shore when she wishes to communicate with some one
there?"

"I think you must be mistaken," said Doom, uneasily.

"I could swear I saw something of the kind," said Count Victor. He
described the signal he had seen twice at her window. "Not having met
her at the time, I laid it down to some gay gillian's affair with
a lover on the mainland, but since I have seen her that idea
seem--seems--"

"Just so, I should think it did," said the Baron: but though his words
were light, his aspect was disturbed. He paced once or twice up and down
the floor, muttered something to himself in Gaelic, and finally went to
the door, which he opened. "Mungo, Mungo!" he cried into the darkness,
and the servant appeared with the gaudy nightcap of his slumber already
on.

"Tell Annapla to come here," said the Baron.

The servant hesitated, his lip trembled upon some objection that he did
not, however, express, and he went on his errand.

In a little the woman entered. It was not surprising that when Count
Victor, prepared by all that had gone before to meet a bright young
creature when he had gone into his chamber where she was repelling the
escalade of the enemy, had been astounded to find what he found there,
for Mistress Annapla was in truth not the stuff for amorous intrigues.
She had doubtless been handsome enough in her day, but that was long
distant; now there were but the relics of her good looks, with only her
eyes, dark, lambent, piercing, to tell of passions unconsumed. She had
eyes only for her master; Count Victor had no existence for her, and he
was all the freer to watch how she received the Baron's examination.

"Do you dry your clothes at the windows in Doom?" asked her master
quietly, with none of a master's bluntness, asking the question in
English from politeness