"A murrain on her! The cozening madam, she will never be worth naming
on the same day as Maud Lindesay!"

"Nay," cried the Lady Sybilla, laughing; "indeed, I said not that I
disliked this your squire. What woman thinks the worse of a lad of
mettle that he does not walk with his head between his feet. But 'tis
pity that there is no fair cruel maid to bind his heart in chains, and
make him fetch and carry to break his pride. He thinks overmuch of his
sword-play and arrow skill."

"He must go to France for that humbling," said the Earl, gaily, "or
else mayhap some day a maid may come from France to break his heart
for him. The like hath been and may be again."

"I would that I had known there were such gallant blades as you three,
my Lords of Douglas and their knight, sighing here in Scotland to have
your hearts broke for the good of your souls. I had then brought with
me a tierce of damsels fair as cruel, who had done it in the flashing
of a swallow's wing. But 'tis a contract too great for one poor maid."

"Yet you yourself ventured all alone into this realm of forlorn and
desperate men," answered the Earl, scarcely recking what he said, nor
indeed caring so that her dark eyes should continue to rest on him
with the look he had seen in them at his first coming.

"All alone--yes, much, much alone," she answered with a strange
glance about her. "My kinsman loves not womankind, and neither in his
castles nor yet in his company does he permit any of the sex long to
abide."