in these troubled days who can
say where I may be a week hence, or when I can see you again were
I once separated from you! Therefore, dear, I speak at once. I
love you, Marjory, and since the day when you came like an angel
into my cell at Dunstaffnage I have known that I loved you, and
should I never see you again could love none other. Will you wed
me, love?"

"But the king tells me, Sir Archie," the girl said, looking up with
a half smile, "that he wishes you to wed the Lady Mary Kerr."

"It is a dream of the good king," Archie said, laughing, "and he
is not in earnest about it. He knows that I have never set eyes on
the lady or she on me, and he was but jesting when he said so to
you, having known from me long ago that my heart was wholly yours."

"Besides," the girl said hesitating, "you might have objected to
wed Mistress Kerr because her father was an enemy of yours."

"Why dwell upon it?" Archie said a little impatiently. "Mistress
Kerr is nothing in the world to me, and I had clean forgotten her
very existence, when by some freak or other she sent her retainers
to fight under my command. She may be a sweet and good lady for what
I know; she may be the reverse. To me she is absolutely nothing;
and now, Marjory, give me my answer. I love you, dear, deeply and
truly; and should you say, 'Yes,' will strive all my life to make
you happy."

"One more question, Archie, and then I will answer yours. Tell me
frankly, had I been Mary Kerr instead of Marjory MacDougall, could
you so far forget the ancient feud between the families as to say
to me, 'I love you.'"

Archie laughed.

"The question is easily answered. Were you your own dear self it
would matter nought to me were your name Kerr, or MacDougall, or
Comyn, or aught else. It is you I love, and your ancestors or your
relations matter to me not one single jot."

"Then I will answer you," the girl said, putting her hand in his.
"Archie Forbes, I love you with my whole heart, and have done
so since I first met you; but," she said, drawing back, as Archie
would have clasped her in his arms, "I must tell you that you have
been mistaken, and that it is not Marjory MacDougall whom you would
wed, but Mary, whom her uncle Alexander always called Marjory,
Kerr."

"Marjory Kerr!" Archie repeated, in astonishment.

"Yes, Archie, Marjory or Mary Kerr. The mistake was none of my
making; it was you called me MacDougall; and knowing that you had
reason to hate my