"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go--I
am Earl of Douglas."

The girl clasped her hands helplessly.

"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said.
"Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there
are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have
suffered?"

The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.
"Go--go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed
place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save
those which come forth from your own true heart."

"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late,
Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my
breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.
The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."

The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was
a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who
stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William
Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at
least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred
greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or
that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of hell for
one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that
which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not