The girl was now breathing more quickly, her bosom rising and falling
visibly beneath her light silken gown.

"Yet because of those that have been of the house of Douglas before
him, shall I have no pity upon William, sixth Earl thereof! And
because of two dead Dukes of Touraine, will I deliver to you the third
Duke, into whose mouth hath hardly yet come the proper gust of living.
This is the tale I have heard a thousand times. There was in France,
it skills not where, a vale quiet as a summer Sabbath day. The vines
hung ripe-clustered in wide and pleasant vineyards. The olives rustled
grey on the slopes. The bell swung in the monastery tower. The cottage
in the dell was safe as the château on the hill. Then came the foreign
leader of a foreign army, and lo! in a day, there were a hundred dead
men in the valley, all honourable men slain in defence of their own
doors. The smoky flicker of flames broke through the roof in the
daylight. There was heard the crying of many women. And the man who
wrought this was an Earl of Douglas."

The girl paused, and in a low whisper, intense as the breathing of the
sea, she said:

_"And for this will I deliver into your hands his grandson, William of
Douglas!"_

Then her voice came again to the ears of the four listeners, in a note
low and monotonous like the wind that goes about the house on autumn
evenings.

"There was also one who, being but a child, had escaped from that