What did the robbers do to you,
My fair lady?"_

The lady on the delicately pacing palfrey turned the darkness of her
eyes from the white-robed choristers to the face of the young man.
Then, with an impetuous motion of her hand, she urged him to listen
for the next words, which swept over Earl William's heart with a
cadence of unutterable pain and inexplicable melancholy.

_"They broke my lock and stole my gold, stole my gold, stole my gold,
Broke my lock and stole my gold,
My fair lady!"_

He turned upon his companion with a quick energy, as if he were afraid
of losing himself again.

"Who are you, lady, and what do you here?"

The girl (for in years she was little more) smiled and reined her
steed a little back from him with an air at once prettily petulant and
teasing.

"Is that spoken as William Douglas or as the Justicer of Galloway--a
country where, as I understand, there is no trial by jury?"

The light of a radiant smile passed from her lips into his soul.

"It is spoken as a man speaks to a woman beautiful and queenly," he
said, not removing his eyes from her face.