Softly closing the door behind her, she paused a moment as if
undecided, and then more with her chin than with her finger she
beckoned him to approach.

"She sleeps," said the girl, softly, "but so uncertainly and with so
many startings of terror, that I will not leave her alone. Will you
aid me to remove the mattress of my couch and lay it on the floor
beside her?"

Sholto signified his willingness. His mind was more than ever
oppressed by the thought that the Earl of Douglas loved this girl,
whom he had found listening to his jests with such frank joyousness.

Maud stayed him with one of the long looks out from under her
eyelashes. The dark violet orbs rested upon him a moment reproachfully
with a hurt expression in their depths, and were then dropped with a
sigh.

"You are still angry with me," she said, a little wistfully, "and I
wanted to tell you how happy it made me--made us, I mean--when we
heard that you were to be captain of the castle-guard instead of that
grumbling old curmudgeon, Jock of Abernethy."

The heart of Sholto was instantly melted, more by her looks than by
her words, though deep within him he had still an angry feeling that
he was being played with. All the same, and in spite of his resolves,
the eyeshot from under those dark and sweeping lashes did its usual
and deadly work.

"I did not know that aught which might befall me could be anything to