that he knew naught soever of the dear children I had lost."

"Greatly do I pity you, Earl Roderic," said Adela, clasping her hands.
"And you have not yet found trace of your little ones?"

"No," said Roderic. "And now do I believe that they are still at play in
the crystal halls of the water kelpie, whence no man can rescue them."

"And your wife Sigrid, what of her?" asked Sir Oscar Redmain.

"When I got back to Gigha," murmured Roderic, "they told me that in my
absence she had gone mad, and that in her frenzy she had cast herself
from the cliffs into the sea. Whithersoever I have gone since that sad
time, there have I found unhappiness."

The Lady Adela looked upon the man with gentle pity in her dark eyes.
She felt how different had been his lot from hers and her dear
husband's. For notwithstanding that she dwelt in a country not her own,
and among people who spoke a foreign tongue, yet she was very happy. The
Earl Hamish loved her well and was ever good to her. And their two sons,
Alpin and Kenric, growing up into manhood, were very dear to her heart.

She was the daughter of a proud English baron, who had wide dominions
near the great city of York. Twenty years before, Earl Hamish of Bute
had been sent with other wise counsellors by King Alexander the Second
on a mission to the court of the English king, Henry the Third,
concerning the great treaty of peace between England and Scotland, and
also to consider the proposal of a marriage between the daughter of the
King of England and the son of the King of Scots. The treaty established
a peace which had not yet been broken, and the Princess Margaret of