hand, a longer and a
shorter. I fling them from me--thus!"

The Lady Sybilla clapped her hands joyously and turned towards the
young man. "Will you indeed go with me?" she cried. "Will you truly? I
could kiss your hand, my Lord Douglas, you make me so glad."

"Your kiss will keep," said the Earl, with a quiet passion quivering
in his voice.

"Nay, I meant it not thus--not as you mean it. I knew not what I said.
But it will indeed change all things for me if you do but come. Then I
shall have some one to speak with--some one with whom to laugh at
their pitiful Court mummery, their fiasco of dignity. You are not like
these other beggarly Scots, my Lord Duke of Touraine."

"They are brave men and loyal gentlemen," said the generous young
Earl. "They would die for me."

"Nay, but so I declare would I," gaily cried the lady, glancing at his
handsome head with a quick admiring regard. "So would I--if I were a
man. Besides, there is so little worth living for in a country such as
this."

The Earl was silent and she proceeded.

"But how joyous we shall be at Edinburgh! Know you that at the Court
of Charles that was my name--La Joyeuse they called me. We will keep
solemn countenances, you and I, while we enter the presence of the
King. We will bow. We will make obeisances. Then, when all is over, we
will laugh together at the fatted calf of a Tutor, the cunning
Chancellor with his quirks of law, and the poor schoolboy scarce
breeched whom they call King of Scotland. But all the while I shall be
thinking of the true King of Scots--who alone shall ever be King to
me--"

At this point La Joyeuse broke off short, as if her feelings were
hurrying her to say more than she had intended.

"I did wrong to flout their messengers yesterday," said William
Douglas, his boyish heart misgiving him at dispraise of others;
"perhaps they meant me well. But I am naturally quick and easily
fretted, and the men annoyed me with their parchments royal, their
heralds-of-the-Lion, and the 'King of Scots' at every other word."

"Who is the youth who rides at the head of your company?" said the
Lady Sybilla.

"His name is Sholto MacKim, and it was but yesterday that I made him
captain of my guard," answered the Earl.

"I like him not," said the Lady Sybilla; "he is full of ignorance and
obstinacy and pride. Besides which, I am sure he loves me not."

"Save that last, I am not sure that a Douglas has a right to dislike
him for any such fa