slippered feet peeped out. The
cloak was of the latest mode, very wide and open at the neck and
shoulders, and beneath the mantle I caught more than a glimpse of the
laced white nightrail and the fine sloping neck. 'Twas plain that her
abductors had given her only time to fling the wrap about her before they
snatched her from her bedchamber. Some wild instinct of defense stirred
within her, and with one hand she clutched the cloak tightly to her
throat. My heart went out to the child with a great rush of pity. The mad
follies of my London life slipped from me like the muddy garment outside,
and I swore by all I held most dear not to see her wronged.

"Madam," I said, "for all the world I would not harm you. I have come to
offer you my sword as a defense against those who would injure you. My
name is Montagu, and I know none of the name that are liars," I cried.

"Are you the gentleman that was for stopping the carriage as we came?" she
asked.

"I am that same unlucky gentleman that was sent speldering in the
glaur.[2] I won an entrance to the house by a trick, and I am here at your
service," I said, throwing in my tag of Scotch to reassure her.

"You will be English, but you speak the kindly Scots," she cried.

"My mother was from the Highlands," I told her.

"What! You have the Highland blood in you? Oh then, it is the good heart
you will have too. Will you ever have been on the braes of Raasay?"

I told her no; that I had always lived in England, though my mother was a
Campbell. Her joy was the least thing in the world daunted, and in her
voice there was a dash of starch.

"Oh! A Campbell!"

I smiled. 'Twas plain her clan was no friend to the sons of _Diarmaid_.

"My father was out in the '15, and when he wass a wounded fugitive with
the Campbell bloodhounds on his trail Mary Campbell hid him till the chase
was past. Then she guided him across the mountains and put him in the way
of reaching the Macdonald country. My father married her after the
amnesty," I explained.

The approving light flashed back into her eyes.

"At all events then I am not doubting she wass a good lassie, Campbell or
no Campbell; and I am liking it that your father went back and married
her."

"But we are wasting time," I urged. "What can I do for you? Where do you
live? To whom shall I take you?"

She fell to earth at once. "My grief! I do not know. Malcolm has gone to
France. He left me with Hamish Gorm in lodgings, but they wi