Reverend Slowboy in my place; but his talk was of no moment to me,
for my pulse was going like a trip-hammer, my brain reeled with that
headiest wine of Nature's brewing, and I wanted to get out under the
stars and be alone.

Having some skill at singing, Geordie MacAllister urged that I recall
the catch we had heard on the beach; but finding me adamant against
such an exhibition, Dame Dickenson offered a suggestion for our
entertainment.

"There's a ward of mine here, a young lady, who has the music, and,
seeing ye're all gentlemen, might be urged to a song."

Five minutes from the time that she was seated with us, I had heard her
voice, our eyes had held each other again, and I saw a carnation flush
bloom suddenly in her cheek as our hands touched. She brought with her
a curious old instrument, like a lute with many strings, and upon this
she struck chords to the song she sang, "The Wronged Love of Great
Laird Gregory," the melody of which seems ever to be with me; and
yesterday, when I heard Nancy crooning it to herself, I cried aloud as
a woman might, for the unfulfilled in all our lives, and my dead youth,
and Marian Ingarrach.

And at her singing, the four of us--or five it may be, for I can not
now rightly recall whether Sawney MacAllister came ashore that night or
not--sat before her beauty as though it were a part of witchery, for
there was a bookish strangeness to it that on this wild coast, in a
nest of smugglers and free-traders, after a cruise of rough living and
deep drinking, we should be listening to the voice of a girl whose
beauty was upsetting to the senses of man and whose bearing denoted
breeding of the highest order.

She left us after a second singing, bidding us good-night in a
laughing, friendly fashion, and looking at every one, save me, full in
the eyes, as a child might have done; but when her hand touched mine,
her eyes fell before me, and I, who knew something of woman's ways,
felt with a leaping heart that she knew.

The rest were gone from the room when Sandy Carmichael, who had made
the pretense of another pipe, came back to me as I stood looking into
the fire.

"You saw her first!" he said.

"Aye," I answered, "and it's all over with me!"

"Is it to the church door?" he asked.

"It's to the foot of the Throne itself," I answered. "It's wherever she
leads," for I was young and phrase-making was in the blood.

"Well," he says, "ye're Lord Stair, and if ye choose to marry a