The Master of Stair

by Marjorie Bowen

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I
THE RECKONING

It was the very height of spring in Edinburgh; the middle of May, 1695; the warm sunny day was fading into dusk and the street lamps were lit and glittering yellow through the twilight. Before a magnificent mansion in the finest part of the city, a large crowd was gathered, an angry crowd that surged up and down, murmuring dangerously.

And in the front room of the mansion a man sat alone and listened to that ominous sound without.

The vast room was unlit and the long windows open to the balcony and fresh spring air; the heavy furnishing was splendid to excess; its one occupant sat before a gold harpsichord, leaning against it, with face turned toward the window; close to his elbow stood a crystal vase of early white roses and violets and on the white wall behind him was painted a cluster of hollyhocks and pinks.

He was sumptuously attired in heavy white satin that shimmered in the dusk; round his neck hung the dull gold knots and roses of the collar of St. George, and below his knees the bright blue of the Garter showed; there were patches on his face and his black ringlets were elaborately curled and powdered in the front.

His unbuckled sword lay along the harpsichord; now and then as the murmur rose to a shout he laid his hand upon it and his black brows frowned. For John Dalrymple, first Earl of Stair, felt very keenly to-night what it meant to be the best hated man in Scotland.

After a while he arose with a stir of perfume and crossed midway to the window.

The crowd below had gathered in numbers; they pressed close against his iron gates; and from the confusion of voices one word rose distinctly:

“Glencoe! Glencoe!”

The Earl of Stair stepped onto the balcony and at the sight of him there rose a howl of execration; he frowned down on them with the bitterest scorn and turned into the room again.

A stone crashed up at the balcony and again came: “Glencoe!”

He glanced at the clock and rang a bell; when the servant appeared in answer, he asked for lights. “And order the coach,” he said.

The man hesitated, stopped.

“My lord—my lord—you will not go abroad?”

“To my Lord Breadalbane’s reception,” answered the Earl.

“My lord—does your lordship hear the mob?”

The Earl flared with impatience.

“I do not ask your attendance—if there be one man in my service not a coward let him drive, it will suffice.”

The servant bowed and withdrew, and the Earl stood silent in the center of the room until the man returned and, lifting the candles, set the room in a soft glow.

“Draw the curtains,” commanded the Earl.

The servant obeyed and as the pink satin was drawn over the dark, without a low groan rose from the waiting crowd.

The Earl crossed to the harpsichord, picked up his sword and buckled it on.

The servant softly left the room, and the inner silence was unbroken till the rattle of the coach into the yard below. The crowd gave it a low, dangerous greeting as they passed and clamored against the iron railing.

The Earl turned a glance out of narrowed eyes at the shrouded windows and his ringed finger shifted his sword up and down in the scabbard.

A light footstep made him turn; it was his wife.

He frowned; she passed in silence to the harpsichord and with an agitated look at him sank into the seat there.

“Will you not send for the soldiers, my lord?”

She spoke in a troubled way; with halting utterance and a nervous foot tapping the floor; the Earl considered her a moment; she was pale, her blonde head set off against the crimson and purple of the painted flowers behind her; her mauve and gold gown shone in a bright reflection on the polished boards; a cloak of a delicate opal color was clasped with diamonds over her bosom, the rich black and white of the ermine lining showing as it fell apart.

“You are not coming with me?” was his answer, noting her.

“Yes—” she gave back hurriedly. “You see—I am dressed—”

“Yesterday, you said you would not accompany me, madam,” he commented coldly, “and I see no need.”

“I should prefer to, my lord.”

“Why?” he frowned.

“I—I do not care to be alone—these people outside frighten me.”

“There are the servants.”

She moved uneasily. “I do not trust servants—indeed, I would rather come.”

He looked at her curiously; it was rare indeed for her to be anxious for his company; though since his father’s death with no one to foment it, the bitterness between them had grown less active, still he was surprised that she should so far depart from her usual silent avoidance of him as to desire to accompany him to-night—to-night when his servants shrank from driving with him through Edinburgh Town.

She waited his verdict anxiously, her slender fingers pulling heedlessly at the roses and violets beside her.

“Why not send for the soldiers?” she repeated at length. “They are dangerous to-night—these people.”

He lifted his shoulders contemptuously.

“I am not afraid of them. It is no more than they have done before. I was never a favorite of the mob.”

“Yet these are in earnest—this question of Glencoe—”

He turned on her.

“Madam—do not let me hear that word. An insensate party cry—begun by the Jacobites; spread by my enemies—a meaningless parrot call—what is Glencoe to me? An act, two years old—a thing cursedly bungled or Hamilton had not left any alive to start this howl.”

“Yet the King has ordered an inquiry and appointed a commission, has he not?”

The Earl smiled bitterly.

“Madam, my enemies have forced the King to head the stronger party—what does he know of it? Nothing.”

The servant entered with his master’s hat and cloak; Lady Stair rose with a faint color in her cheeks and drew her hood around her face.

They descended the stairs in silence; below the secretary met them with an attempt to keep the Earl within the house.

The footmen had refused to ride behind the coach (the Earl was not beloved by his servants). Yet to go unattended: Lord Stair smiled unpleasantly.

“Dismiss them,” he said briefly, and himself opening the door stepped out into the portico.

Between him and the mob was the cobbled yard, behind the high iron railings, yet it seemed as if this would little assure him safety so fierce a shout burst forth when it beheld him.

The Master of Stair had always been hated; though his magnificence, his generosity with money, his recklessness in politics were qualities likely to be beloved by the populace, his excessive arrogance, the horrible tales connected with his house, his aloofness, his lack of amiable vices, his swift and brilliant rise from a mere advocate to the most powerful man in Scotland, were things not to be forgiven by either high or low.

And he had always been on the unpopular side, always served the law not the people; he was merciless too, and reckless in making enemies; they who for two years had been working to spread the tale of Glencoe, found that to give some or any point to the general hate of the Master of Stair was as easy as putting a match to gunpowder; the mob shouted “Glencoe!”—as they would have shouted anything that voiced their long dislike; high and low, all Edinburgh, had combined on this pretext to pull the Dalrymple down.

The Earl stared at the mob a moment and his blue eyes darkened; he knew well enough the value of their shout of horror at Glencoe and despised them the more utterly; he was not afraid that all his enemies together could accomplish his ruin; he had England behind him; and during these three years his worldly success had swept him on and up beyond all meddling with.

He helped his wife into the coach; she had turned even whiter: as the crowd shouted she trembled: her husband took no heed of her.

One of the servants ran forward to open the gates: the people drew back quietly, waiting in an ominous hush.

The coachman whipped up his horses and dashed through the gates at a gallop. Howls, curses, shrieks arose and the mob made a wild onset, but the hoofs of the four plunging horses kept a passage clear and the coach swept free. But the crowd followed and closed about it. Lady Stair cowered in a corner. Stones rattled on the roof and mud was flying at the windows; stones and sticks struck the coachman, the carriage came to a standstill and a wild shout burst forth.

The Earl cursed fiercely and flung the window up; they shouted up vile names at him and mouthed foul versions of his misfortunes till his cheek was dark with passion.

With a hard face he slipped his hand to his pocket.

“Listen!” he pulled the door open and leaned forward. “If ye do not leave go of the horses—if one of you come a step nearer—I’ll shoot the dog.” And he lifted his white and silver gloved hand closed round the glitter of a pistol.

For an instant his firm reckless facing of them discomposed the crowd, yet the sight of his lowering dark face as greatly roused their wrath anew.

“Ye damned Dalrymple!” shouted one man. “Answer for the bluid o’ Glencoe!”

As he spoke he leaped to gain the open doorway of the coach.

The Earl seized him by the collar and hurled him backwards into the mass. “By God!” he cried with blazing eyes, “I’ll have the law on you, you hounds—I’ll have you whipped and hanged for this.”

His fierce voice rose above the clamor and stirred fury beyond awe. There was a wild dash at the coach and in another moment the mob would have dragged Earl Stair to his death. But Lady Stair had risen from her place in the interior, forgotten by her husband, unknown of by the mob.

Now she caught his arm and slipped into view in the doorway.

“Don’t fire!” she said; she lifted a beseeching face.

The carriage lamps fell on her bright fairness and the shimmer of her dress; the night wind blew her hair and ribbons about her; in the sudden surprise of her appearance the crowd was silent.

The Earl’s hand dropped to his side.

“Surely you will let us pass,” she said, looking round her in a gentle way.

There was no one there who had any wish to shed blood before Lady Dalrymple; she was greatly beloved in Edinburgh and neither her beauty nor her fearlessness failed of their effect.

“We willna’ touch ye, mistress,” cried a man. “Stand awa’ frae yer husband.”

But she had laid her hand on the Earl’s breast and though he sought to move her, kept her place.

“Ye hae a bad lord!” shouted another. “But ye are a gentle leddy—stand frae the Earl—”

“Madam—retire!” cried her husband, very white.

But she took no heed of him.

“Give us leave to pass,” she said very softly.

They fell away from the carriage door; it was obvious that they would not touch him while she was there; the horses, suddenly freed, dashed ahead.

The Earl drew his wife inside and closed the door.

“Now, why, madam, why that?” he demanded breathlessly.

She drew away with a little shudder to the farthest corner of the coach.

The crowd had fallen away to right and left; they were proceeding unhindered.

“What did you think I should do?” she answered.

He seated himself, leaning towards her. “Did you accompany me, madam, that you might play my good angel?”

She looked away.

“I knew that they would not touch you while I was there.”

In utter amazement he stared at her.

“I am much beholden to your—charity,” he said haughtily.

She glanced round, saw his expression, and the blood flew into her face.

“Spare your gratitude, my lord,” she said bitterly, “I would have done as much for any.”

He frowned. “I did not think that I evoked your peculiar solicitude,” he answered. “Doubtless you like to display your exemption from the hatred my house is held in.”

“My lord!” she cried, “that savors of your father’s tongue—and is unworthy.”

“You must pardon me,” he said in a proud voice, “but I am not used, madam, to be an object of pity.”

Lady Stair gazed from the window blindly on the dark streets.

“I did not use the word, my lord.”

“Madam, you performed the act.”

She turned suddenly in a half-desperate manner. “Do you suppose that I want to see you hurt—or killed?” she asked.

He lifted his eyebrows; his face with wrath was near as white as his dress.

“I should not have imagined that it would, madam, have greatly afflicted you.”

Her blue eyes glared at him curiously.

“You strangely misunderstand,” she said slowly, “you are very hard—but I—of late, I have grown more passive—what does it all matter? Think, my lord, what you will.” She rested her head against the cushions and her hands fell together in her lap; her husband turned his head away sharply; her presence was a fret, her sad face a reproach; she had been very quiet of late; from one month’s end to another he took little notice of her, but to-night she was forced on him; he could not help seeing her delicate soft fairness, her drooping mouth; he could not get away from the unhappiness she was a symbol of.

They drove in silence; idly Lady Stair pulled at her fan and stared out of the window; moodily he traced patterns on the coach floor with his scabbard point, his face turned from her. So they galloped through Edinburgh and thundered into the courtyard of Lord Breadalbane’s house.

CHAPTER II
FOREBODINGS

The musicians were playing the delicate melody of a pavan in Lady Breadalbane’s ball-room, the air was heavy with the scent of the white and pink roses that decorated the walls and the rhythmical movements of the dancers were reflected in smooth pale floors.

In a little card-room opening on the ball-room sat Breadalbane and the Earl of Stair, in converse.

Breadalbane appeared ill and anxious; his delicate face was pale and drawn, his manner strained to composure and quiet. Their discourse lay round the word now in the mouth of all Scotland, Glencoe.

“Ye hae heard?” said Breadalbane, “that the King’s commission appointed to make the inquiry canna be kept off it ony longer. The feeling is ower strang.”

The Earl of Stair’s foot beat time softly to the pavan; he gazed with an inscrutable face toward the distant dancers.

“Tweeddale and the other privy councilors will hold this investigation in a day or so—even ye, my lord, canna stop them.”

Still the other made no answer.

“Ye hav’na’,” continued Breadalbane, “the power ye had, my lord, tho’ to the world ye seem at the pinnacle o’ fame—but the Presbyterians and the Jacks together will be too strang for ye noo.”

The Earl’s blue eyes flashed.

“I do not dread the inquiry,” he said. “Albeit it is conducted by my enemies—my bitter enemies, Johnstone and Tweeddale.”

“Ay,” answered Breadalbane, “ye hae mony enemies, and they’ll ruin ye if they can, but ’tis ane bitter enemy has wrought this.”

“Who mean ye?” frowned Lord Stair.

Breadalbane lifted his shoulders.

“I dinna ken—ye should ken best—some one has been at work—persistently, during these three years this tale has been abroad, through the non-jurors, the Jacks—to your enemies in Parliament—till all Scotland is roused. Who is at the bottom of it?”

Lord Stair turned slowly to the speaker.

“A tale springing from the Jacks,” he said scornfully. “Will any believe it? It does not trouble me. I have not even heard their version.”

“Ye are ower sure, Lord Stair—the work has been slow but certain—the tale is in every mouth.”

“What tale, my lord?”

“The tale o’ what they call the massacre o’ Glencoe.”

“What do they say?” asked Lord Stair with a disdainful smile.

“They say that the Macdonalds were murdered by your orders—they say that the soldiers entered the Glen by black treachery, feigning friendship, that they lived there ower a fortnicht, feasting and drinking, that they rose one nicht and murdered the clan in their beds, butchered them, men, women and children, with every cruelty—that is the tale they tell, Lord Stair.”

“It is a lie.”

“Yea—it is a lee—but ye canna, I ken, prove it a lee. The inquiry will be behind closed doors—it will be conducted by your enemies; ye hae all Scotland believing this lee—and against ye.”

Lord Stair spoke impatiently.

“Every soldier under Glenlyon knows that this was a military execution—every man among them can disprove this wild tale of the Jacobites—”

“The Argyllshire regiment is in America,” said Breadalbane, “and I hav’na’ seen Glenlyon since he left my service suddenly—disappeared—”

Lord Stair seemed struck into a frowning silence for a moment. At length he asked:

“Whom will they examine—these commissioners?”

Breadalbane lifted his light eyes.

“Sandy and Ian Macdonald who escaped—Keppoch and Glengarry—I dinna ken—what others—I am nae in their secrets.”

Again in silence Lord Stair looked out across the ball-room; the delicate melody of the pavan came exquisitely through the roses.

Lord Stair’s mouth curved into a little smile; he did not fear; he despised his enemies; that they had discovered such a weapon as this against him roused his bitter amusement more than his wrath. He disdained to be moved by insults raked from the very mud of the gutter; he cared nothing for tales started in Jacobite pamphlets. No remorse troubled him with regard to Glencoe; he was too sure of himself, his great position, the King’s friendship, to tremble before the Scottish Parliament.

“Let them open the commission,” he said loftily, “let them listen to the lies of Highland savages. I shall not lift a finger to prevent them. They must have a party cry—as well Glencoe as any other.”

He took one of the roses from the bowl on the card table and pulled idly at the curling leaves; his eyes were carelessly following the figure of his wife as her gold embroideries flashed among the dancers.

Breadalbane watched him curiously.

“Ye are ower easy, Lord Stair. Ye ken the ugly things the inquiry will reveal? How they took the oath and it was suppressed—for your ain purpose.”

Lord Stair flicked a torn petal from his white sleeve.

“I had authority to suppress what I choose, my lord,” he answered indifferently. “The oath was invalid—as it came in too late, and so I treated it. Besides, have you forgotten that I had the King’s warrant?”

A faint smile touched Breadalbane’s thin lips.

“Will the King stand by ye?” he asked. “Will he no’ say that he didna’ ken what he signed?”

Lord Stair sat silent. Breadalbane’s keen insight had brought him to the truth. Stair thought of that day at Kensington when William had signed the order without reading it, and for the first time a vague uneasiness touched him; he turned at last, half-angrily.

“Why this anxiety on my behalf, my lord?” he demanded. “You had a share in this business, yet you are safe—thanks to your prudence.”

The pavan was over. Lord Stair watched his wife till she had gone out of sight with her partner; he had pulled the rose away to the heart and absently he played with the pile of petals on the table beside him.

“Mae mon’s prudence,” remarked Breadalbane a little bitterly, “can take account of such a mischance as this—some one hae been working in the dark—some black steady malice hae been accomplishing this.”

“The malice of the Jacks,” suggested Lord Stair with a smile.

“It’s mair than that, my lord—is this story that makes England and France shout shame on us and the mob pelt us as we pass, a mere invention of the Jacks? Ye hae a bitter secret enemy—my lord—canna ye guess at one wha might do this thing?”

Lord Stair dragged the pilfered rose across the table, leaving the gold pollen dust staining the inlaid wood; he still smiled.

“I know of none—my enemies are numerous—but not—my lord, secret.”

The violins commenced a gavotte. Lady Stair crossed the floor, Mr. Wharton was her partner; her husband looked at them and reflected that Mr. Wharton was too often in Edinburgh; these three years had not softened his dislike of the good-humored beau.

Breadalbane spoke again.

“Ye are mistaken—the maist deadly of your enemies is the hidden one wha hae trumped up this tale.”

“Maybe it is an enemy of your own,” answered Lord Stair. “Maybe you, my lord, are the object of this spite.”

“It is na directed against me—if I fall it will be only in complication wi’ ye—they hav’na’ mentioned me—it is always ye, Lord Stair.”

A little silence fell; no voices broke the spirited measure of the gavotte; Lord Stair trifled lazily with the ruined rose; Breadalbane watched him covertly.

The candle-light gleamed softly on the round arms and bare shoulders of the women as they passed between their partners and courtesied, each reflected in the long mirrors lining the room, so that three Lady Stairs appeared to be dancing, one in profile, one full face, one with her back, all clad in satin that caught rippling lights and gleaming shadows, all smiling, faintly.

Lord Stair spoke at length.

“My letters—that I wrote at the time of this affair—you kept them?”

“They were vera imprudent—yes, I kept them.”

Lord Stair lifted his blue eyes; they were dark, a little troubled.

“You can give them back to me, my lord, there is no need for them to serve Tweeddale’s turn.”

The music crashed to its climax; the three Lady Stair’s advanced, receded, bowed with the glittering shaking of a cloud of gold embroideries.

“Send me those letters,” repeated Lord Stair. “I shall be obliged, my lord.”

A curious look passed over Breadalbane’s face.

“They are nae langer in my possession.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tweeddale sent for them—to be examined—wi’ your letters to the Commander of the Forces.”

Lord Stair flushed and turned quickly in his chair.

“And you sent them?”

Breadalbane smiled.

“Yes.”

“Now—by heaven, my lord, that was ill done!”

Unmoved, Breadalbane lifted his shoulders.

“I must show my authority—I canna tak’ the blame—ye wrote them, ye must even tak’ the—credit, Lord Stair.”

“You have treated me unworthily.”

The Earl of Stair was breathing fast, he clenched his hand on the rose petals and his angry eyes glanced disdainfully over his companion; but Breadalbane kept his composure.

“As ye mak’ naething o’ the affair,” he remarked dryly, “ye dinna need to care that the Marquis o’ Tweeddale will be reading your letters.”

“Care?” echoed Lord Stair. “I care for none of it—you, my lord, behave according to your nature. I am your guest. We will let the matter of the papers pass. After all I should not have expected otherwise, and I am not ashamed of what I have written.”

Breadalbane was quiet, slightly discomfited by the magnificent manner and person of the man whose reckless imprudence his cunning despised.

Lord Stair rose, sweeping the petals in a cloud onto the floor; bowed, and passed into the ball-room.

The gavotte was over, the company stood about in little knots; as Lord Stair passed he heard fragments of their converse; it seemed that they talked of nothing save Glencoe, Glencoe and the impending commission.

Johnstone was there, his fellow-minister and rival; he crossed the room to make some smiling remarks to him upon the current topic.

“Ye have some enemy at work, my lord,” said Johnstone with a pleasant spite.

Lord Stair gazed at him in a disdainful silence, but the words pierced the armor of his splendid scorn.

Had not Breadalbane said the same? Some secret enemy working his ruin.

He thought it over gloomily; it was part of the curse over the Dalrymples, perchance, part of the bitter curse that at last, after he had stifled the miseries of his personal tragedies with brilliant, mighty success, he should be pulled to ruin by some unknown enemy.

He had seated himself in front of one of the great mirrors and gazed frowningly at the company; his wife passed with Tom Wharton; he took no heed of her save to wonder bitterly what she would do were he ruined, if such a wild thing happened and he was brought low. What would she do? He thought grimly that her company would not trouble him in that case; doubtless she would be glad of the scandal of his disgrace to cover the scandal of her desertion; the thin chain that held her would be snapped, when the world turned on him so would she; he was sure of it, and he reflected how easily his fortunes, his name, his honor could be pulled to the dust if Tweeddale and his faction triumphed.

But his arrogance dismissed even the shadow of humiliation; he had been howled at, reviled, threatened before; this storm would pass as others had done; he had weathered too much for a paltry matter such as this Glencoe affair to overthrow him.

With the calm of his conscious pride he looked round on the brilliant crowd. He was well aware that most of them were his ill-wishers, he would not have been to the trouble of turning his head to conciliate one of them; they might say what they would of him, he would stoop to neither justification nor defense.

As the music recommenced, his wife advanced into the recess. She seemed agitated and to hesitate, and paused looking at him strangely.

“The things they say!” she breathed quickly. “Have you heard?”

His face hardened, disdaining to answer. He glanced away, but she, ignoring the repulse, crossed the polished floor with a sweep of satin and put her hand on the back of his chair.

“It is not true, my lord,” she asked, “this tale—it is some slander of the Jacobites?”

He looked at her sideways in a manner that made her blench.

“Has my Lord Wharton been giving you his version of this tale?” he asked.

She answered, very quietly.

“He—and others—it is in the air—and because I know—something of what happened three years ago when this affair of the Macdonalds was first broached—”

“So—you care to remind me of that?” he interrupted hotly.

Her wide eyes held a mournful steadiness.

“Why not my lord? You need not fear any knowledge of mine! That the Macdonalds actually took the oath is now common talk—tell me—is this story of the massacre the truth?”

Very intently and earnestly she looked at him.

“It is horrible,” she said, “the cruelty—the treachery—babies slain and little children dying of cold—my lord, my lord, you did not sanction it?”

He turned his head slowly toward her.

“You may think so if you will,” he answered coldly.

Her hand fell from his chair, she drew back a step.

“Then—it is true?”

“I shall not deny it—if you care to think so you may.”

The look of aversion that was so at variance with her soft face sprang into her eyes.

“Is that your answer? You will not deny it?”

“No,” he said indifferently, “neither to you nor to any other.”

“They will ruin you for it,” she cried breathing quickly.

His eyes flashed; he thought she would had she dared have finished her sentence, “and I shall be free.”

“They may try,” he said. “It will interest you, will it not, madam?”

She flung up her head in a desperate manner.

“It interests me more to know whether you are or are not the infamous wretch these people paint you.”

Lord Stair’s usual pallor deepened. He tightened his lips and would not speak; his wife considered him with baffled eyes, hesitated, then broke into open appeal.

“I would take your word,” she cried.

With a little kindness of voice or tone or look, with a gentle gesture, a denial of the guilt that was at least not his, he could have won her now, won her to believe in him, to stand by him; he knew it but he would not soften, retract or explain, not by so much as a little word would his pride deign to bridge the gulf between them.

He stared at her coldly with a bitter smile.

“Madam, I shall not offer you my word,” he answered. “It is of little matter what you think of me.”

She moved away from him quivering, with outraged eyes.

“Very well,” she said below her breath, “I shall know what to think of you. If you did this thing—if the blood of those babes is on your head.”

He rose suddenly; the George hanging to the collar of knots and roses heaved and glittered with his angry breathing.

“Keep this talk for those who are your usual company, madam,” he said fiercely. “What do you think the brats of savages are to me?”

And he swung out of the recess into the ball-room.

Lady Stair looked after him, and her gentle face grew hard: her delicate hand waved her fan to and fro, slowly under her chin; she stood erect, silent.

The music crept to her ears in a slow melody; the gently moving fan kept time with it; with narrowed eyes she turned and looked at herself in the mirror.

It was a tragic face she saw there, a hopeless face.

With a curious impulse, she leaned forward and kissed the lips of her reflection, kissed the cold glass and smiled into her own eyes, with an utter sadness.

CHAPTER III
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CAMPBELLS

The guests had gone; the roses hung limp and faded; guttering, dying candles cast a dull light over the Countess Peggy as she stood in her deserted ball-room.

She leaned against a mirror; her red hair fell over her bare white shoulders and purple dress; at her bosom drooped a cluster of crimson roses; with anxious eyes she looked at the gray-clad figure of her husband, who sat beside her in an attitude of utter weariness.

“What will be the end of it, Jock?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Ruin for the Earl o’ Stair,” he answered, “They’ve set their minds to it, Tweeddale and his crew, and they’ll na be letting him escape, there is enough against him to hang him—though he’ll no’ be persuaded of it.”

“Let Lord Stair go,” said the Countess, “I dinna care—what will be the end of it for ye, Jock?”

He gave her a tender look.

“Why—they hay’na’ ony evidence against me, Peggy—I didna’ put my name to rash letters—they canna prove onything—I’m safe enow—and sae is Argyll—though he is half-demented wi’ fear.”

“But this trumped up foolery o’ Glenlyon feasting a fortnicht in the Glen, Jock—that touches us—”

The Earl smiled.

“It doesna’—Glenlyon had his commands frae Hamilton na frae me—and Glenlyon—Glenlyon hae been bought by the Jacks—I hae heard—this vera evening—that he hae appeared and will be examined before the commissioners.”

“But however Glenlyon lee—we can disprove that the Campbells were in the Glen a fortnicht.”

“We can,” answered the Earl, “but we willna’. Dinna ye see, Peggy—we must ken naething o’ what occurred—we were miles awa’—at Kilchurn, we must say—we ken naething—naething. If we disprove lees that dinna harm us we must reveal the truth—which wad be vera damaging.”

“Then Lord Stair will indeed be ruined,” said the Countess slowly. “But it is na ony business o’ ours. Ye may trust my silence, Jock.”

She moved to the window and pulled aside the curtain; the stars hung bright and luminous above the sleeping city; a church clock struck one.

The Countess Peggy leaned her head against the mullions and her face fell into lines of weariness; she twisted the ends of her bright hair in and out of slack fingers and the withered roses on her breast, crushed against the window-frame, shed their faded leaves at her feet.

Many of the candles had guttered to the socket and gone out; only two or three, burning ghostly before the tall mirrors, remained to cast a light through the darkened room.

Silence and loneliness were abroad; the Countess gazed up at the infinite distance of the stars and shivered through her slender body; against the sky rose a misty vision often seen by her: the vision of a man with a beautiful face and clothes clay-stained and bloody, holding a lace cravat and looking at her with mournful eyes.

She smiled bitterly as she thought of the uselessness of that blood on her soul; Jerome Caryl might have lived. An obscure traitor had informed and the plot to be carried out at Turnham Green had come to nothing.

She turned from the stars and her eyes sought her husband.

“Jock!” she cried, and there was a world of tenderness, of appeal, of passion in her voice. “Jock!”

She crossed the great shadowy room to where he sat and went on her knees beside him.

“I did it for ye,” she murmured, as if answering an accusation. “Jock—I hae served ye weel?”

He took her hands in his and smiled down at her.

“Peggy, ye ken vera weel ye are all the world to me,” he said most tenderly.

Her head drooped against his arm.

“Then I dinna care for onything,” she whispered. “Yet at times I’m no’ sae brave—I’m afraid.”

Breadalbane’s wide light eyes gazed across the dark.

“Afraid o’ what, Peggy?”

She drew a little closer to him.

“Of wraiths—o’ the dead.”

He smiled, fondling her hair.

“I wad’na’ fear when dead what I had’na’ feared when living, Peggy.”

“Nay, nay, I dinna fear—at least I’m no’ afraid, Jock, when ye are close—but—Ah, Jock—wad I could forget!”

He frowned above his smile.

“Are ye thinking of the Macdonalds, Peggy?”

With a little uneasy movement she lifted her head; her long throat gleamed unnaturally white above her dark dress.

“Sometimes—I—think o’ the Macdonalds.”

Breadalbane laughed as if he cast aside some foolish fancy.

“We hae triumphed ower the Macdonalds, Peggy—the auld thief Makian got his deserts.”

“Yea, I ken.”

“And Ronald Macdonald—ye hated him, Peggy.”

“I ken,” she said hastily, with yearning eyes on his face. “I wad I might forget.”

“Wherefore, Peggy?”

“Ah!—sleeping and waking—I see it—the Glen o’ Weeping—as I rode through it that day wi’ the smoke drifting ower the corpses—and the bitter dawn a-breaking—the bluid ower the heather and the silence, the silence.”

With a half-shudder her eyes drooped and her clasp of his arm tightened.

“This is fules’ talk,” said Breadalbane imperiously. “Sic sights are common in the Hielands—ye ken vera weel—the Campbells hae fed the eagles often enow—I shouldna’ hae thought that ye, Peggy, wad hae sickened at the bluid o’ the Macdonalds.”

“I dinna—but—I canna forget.”

Breadalbane’s eyes flashed.

“Nay—because the Hielands are clear o’ the thieves—we canna forget, when we see Argyllshire and Invernesshire free to the Campbells, when we can ride unarmed with nae to question us—lords o’ the Hielands. Ye say weel we canna forget.”

She warmed a little in response to his tone. “I dinna regret or repent,” she said. “Hate o’ the Macdonalds is in the bluid—it is na sorrow for them but fear—fear maybe, Jock, o’ the reckoning.”

“We shallna’ pay, Peggy—Lord Stair will answer to that.”

Lady Breadalbane was silent, only something like a sigh escaped her.

The last candle sank into darkness; only the pale light of the stars and the street lamps without illumined the room.

“And he will pay,” said Breadalbane.

She started from a reverie.

“Who?”

“Lord Stair.”

“Ye think he will be ruined?”

“What else? They will put it all on him—the King canna do less than dismiss him.”

“Weel, Jock, we dinna care.”

“Nay—I never liked him.”

“Nor I—and his wife, Jock, is a fule.”

“She willna’ abide by him if he be ruined.”

“She will leave him, Jock—ye think?”

“I know and he knows—she hasna’ a tie to hold her—she will be blithe of his disgrace.”

“She hates him—weel, I never knew ony that loved a Dalrymple—they say Lord Stair’s mither wad sit on her husband’s judgment seat in the likeness o’ a black cat—an she hated him—there is somewhat uncanny in the bluid—ye couldna’ love a Dalrymple.”

“Yet Lord Stair is the handsomest gentleman in Scotland, Peggy,” smiled Breadalbane.

“Weel—he is na winning—an there is too much of the auld Viscount, wha made his neck awry striving to listen to the divil, aboot him.”

“The divil must be Lord Stair’s advocate noo—for there is no one else in Scotland will be.”

A silence while they gazed at the paling sky through the long windows; then Breadalbane spoke.

“Peggy—when we gang back to the Hielands—we’ll ride through the Glen o’ Weeping, ye and I—and ye shall hae anither picture o’ it to think on after, when the badges and music o’ the Campbells glitter and ring through the ruins o’ Glencoe.”

“Jock—I am a fule—I dinna regret.”

“Peggy—my dear, my dear!”

She looked up at him through the vague gray light.

“Jock!” she said passionately. “I am content—an’ no afraid o’ the living or the—dead.”

CHAPTER IV
THE LIE ACCOMPLISHED

It was toward the end of June; the commissioners had produced their report on the Glencoe affair, yielding to the public demand to behold their conclusions before the pleasure of the absent King was taken.

The Estates of Scotland were considering the verdict of Tweeddale’s commission; the verdict pronouncing in measured language that a bloody murder had been committed three years ago upon the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and that the entire cause of this slaughter rested with the letters of the Master of Stair. Public excitement flamed high; the greatest gentleman in Scotland had been declared a murderer and as the details of his crime were discussed, there were many who hoped for the pleasure of seeing the unpopular minister hanged in the Grassmarket. The Parliament, clamored in strong debates, roused after the sluggish years, voted to a man that the King’s warrant did not authorize the slaughter of the Macdonalds.

Then Lord Stair’s enemies, in the ascendant, triumphant carried against a feeble opposition that the Glencoe affair was murder.

The feeling of the Estates passed almost beyond control; the Jacobites and the Presbyterians caused Lord Stair’s letters to be read aloud in the Parliament house; the statements of the witnesses: Ian Macdonald, Sandy, his brother, some of the surviving clansmen, Glenlyon, Keppoch and Glengarry, were discussed; the story of the entry of the Glen by treachery; the fortnight’s feasting and card playing, the Campbells’ rising one snowy night to slay their hosts in their beds and drive out the women and children to perish on the mountains, all the details of cowardice and cruelty that gave the story its horror were detailed, canvassed and made much of.

Captain Hamilton was cited in vain at the city cross; at the first hint of the scandal, he had fled Edinburgh. Tales that in contraband, Jacobite pamphlets had circled for three years, were now on the lips of grave men; it was related how, with a generous hospitality, the Macdonalds had received the Campbells who had sworn that they came in friendliness, how they had been made welcome with simple pleasure; pathetic pictures were drawn of a pastoral people, virtuous and ingenuous, living in a state of idyllic innocence. Makian was described, venerable, beloved, trampling the snows to take the oath and returning to his clan at peace with himself and beaming with righteousness.

The trust of these simple folk was dwelt upon; how they had taken the bare word of their ancient enemies and harbored them in perfect faith.

How should they, in their simplicity, have suspected treachery behind the smile of the redcoats?

Dramatic touches, too, were not lacking to this plausible tale; it was related how Sandy Macdonald, awaking one night, had overheard a couple of the soldiers in talk.

“I do not like the work,” one said.

“Give me an open fight—”

Then Sandy Macdonald had gone to Glenlyon and asked, in his innocence, if anything was intended?

Glenlyon had slapped him on the back, laughing. “Why, if there had been anything—don’t you think I should have given you a hint?”

And Sandy Macdonald, being one of the idyllic people, had no choice but to take a Campbell’s word against the evidence of his own senses. And to add to it, the public passion was further inflamed by pictures of Makian and his wife shot dead as they hurried with wine to serve their guests, of babies lying quartered in the snow and women’s fingers chopped off for the sake of their rings, of butchered children and of the blood-stained Campbells driving the flocks and herds of the slaughtered people into Fort William. There was silence as to where these captured cattle had originally come from.

The commissioners had been sworn to secrecy and the inquiry had been conducted behind closed doors; of the actual depositions of the witnesses few knew the truth, but their tales carefully invented, artfully spread, were in every man’s mouth and the machinations of Lord Stair’s enemies had converted the necessary execution of a gang of lawless thieves into one of the most reviled crimes in the annals of Scotland. England and France took up the cry; Justice, they said, had suddenly cried aloud, and no one remarked how curiously silent Justice had been over some of the Macdonald’s actions.

And the odium, the hatred, the scorn, the fury, were all directed against one man,—Lord Stair.

He, they said, was the sole author of these abominations; he had suppressed the Macdonalds’ oath, he had, under false pretenses, obtained the warrant from the King, he had written letters breathing blood and fire; he had exclaimed when he heard that it had been done:

“I only regret that any of the wretches have escaped.”

They had always hated him; these men, and it chimed well with their mood to assume the part of avenging justice and take a pitying interest in these wronged people.

Their enemy had put himself in the wrong before the world; they would see it to that he paid the price.

An address was sent to the King in which justice was demanded and judgment on the Lord Stair as the author of the “massacre” of Glencoe.

A haughty spectator of his own ruin, the Earl of Stair watched these events in silence.

To have shown himself in the Parliament would have been to court instant arrest; he was asked for no defense or vindication and his pride would not permit him to offer one.

The King was in the Netherlands and no further action would be taken until his pleasure was known; but all Scotland had decided that his judgment must affect the estate and probably the life of the disgraced minister.

For his own sake William could not show clemency; mercy to Lord Stair would be complicity in his crime; the King dare not, if he would, blacken himself to save his servant.

On this blue June afternoon, Lord Stair paced his garden; a festival of flowers lying lavishing abroad to the kisses of the sun.

The narrow box-edged paths radiated round a central fountain full of gold carp; a stone figure of Hylas rose from the water-lilies and poured water from a Grecian urn, splashing into the basin.

Trees of box and yew cut into the shapes of peacocks and Chinese pagodas framed the dark background to innumerable roses, hollyhocks and bushes of sweet-brier. Leading to a back entrance to the house was a wide flight of steps ending in a terrace, the balustrade being white with jasmine.

Steadily up and down the smooth paths walked Lord Stair, his shadow now before, now behind him.

On the edge of the fountain sat Lady Stair, feeding the carp with cake.

Her wide straw hat tied with black velvet under her round chin threw half her face into transparent shadow; her stiff blue lutestring dress embroidered with silver stars, spread over the dark green grass and glimmered in the sunlight.

Faint clouds floated across the pearly sky and lay reflected among the water-lilies; the gold fish darted through the leaves like jewels and from the urn held by Hylas, sparkled the clear stream of water.

It was perfectly still, far-removed from the noises of the city; now and then a little breeze rose stirring the perfume from the roses and gently bending the hollyhocks.

Lord Stair stopped at last in his pacing to and fro, stopped so close to his wife that his shadow fell over her and the fountain brim.

She looked up, then down again at the water. “I think my ruin is assured,” said Lord Stair in a hard voice.

“You have no trust in the King?” she asked quietly.

He answered in a proud bitterness:

“The King! He has not shown himself strong enough to withstand a faction—he, the same as the others, will cast the odium on me.”

Lady Stair again looked up.

“What do you mean by ruin?” she asked steadily.

“That, madam, is within the King’s pleasure. To save himself he will show me the greater severity. You understand? I am to be the victim flung to the rage of a party—the clamor of a faction.” He paused a second, gazing over her head, then he struck his hand down on his sword-hilt.

“It is hardly credible!” he said.

“If what they say is true, it is well-deserved,” said Lady Stair evenly. “To your face, my lord, I say it; it is well-deserved.”

He glanced at her curiously.

“Ah—you think so?” he said in a contained voice.

“You would give me no denial,” she answered. “I think what I must think—I conclude what your silence causes me to conclude.”

“It is a matter of no moment,” said Lord Stair. “Perhaps—” and he smiled unpleasantly, “it is as well that my downfall will at least give no one pain.”

“Perhaps it is as well,” she assented coldly. Her ringed hand stirred through the fountain and the water-lilies trembled at her touch; a low passing cloud cast a shadow over the grass. Lord Stair stood silent with a hard and angry face; his wife spoke again.

“Yet I ask you, my lord, what you mean by ruin?”

“Are there, madam, so many forms of it?”

She lifted her wet hand and drew it along the stone brim of the fountain. “I suppose,” she said, “that His Majesty must dismiss you from office—I suppose. That is the least he can do—am I right?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose—he might touch your estate—your life—am I right?”

“Yes.”

“The first, the least he could do would be generous—you think he will not choose it?—again—am I right?”

“Yes.”

A spot of bright color burnt in either cheek as she looked up at him; in the shade of her hat her eyes shone brightly.

“He will do the utmost?”

Lord Stair smiled.

“Be content, madam,” he said bitterly. “I think he will do the utmost.”

She caught her breath.

“And—you wait?”

“What else—yes, I wait.”

Lady Stair rose; as she lifted her head their eyes met.

“So,” she said very quietly. “You have given me that also—you have made me the wife of a disgraced, ruined man, you have dragged me into a hideous downfall of honor and estate. We of my father’s house have kept clear of these things—I think I am the first to be linked to a dishonored name.”

He stood silent, looking at her with an inscrutable expression.

“Reproaches from me will not sting you,” continued Lady Stair. “Dear Heaven, what are we to one another? I would have been spared this, yet it is a fitting end—”

Her wild eyes lifted and fell; she moved a step away across the grass.

Lord Stair spoke, slowly:

“You are free to do as you will—free as the servants I can no longer pay. Do what is in your mind to do. No doubt they will not blame you—”

“Well?” she said.

He lifted his head suddenly.

“I shall not ask you to share exile, a prison or death with me. I cannot hold you. I know it—only—”

“Well?” she murmured again faintly.

“You said—just now—” he spoke with difficulty, a painful distinctness, “you—had kept clear of these things—you will remember it?”

“I do not understand,” she answered.

“I think you do. You are my wife. You will soon be free of me, I think. Until you are, I ask your loyalty. That is all.”

“Are you afraid of me?” she said.

“Of nothing,” he answered. “Least of all of meeting circumstance. Whatever occurs I can deal with it.”

There was a curious expression on Lady Stair’s face.

“You are very confident,” she said, “yet you stood high and you fell.”

He smiled at her.

“Madam—it is a thing that may be done magnificently.”

She stood silent a while with averted eyes, then she stooped, picked up her scarf from the grass and turned slowly toward the house.

Lord Stair watched the blue figure with the long shadow crossing the grass; watched her as she mounted the steps, traversed the terrace and disappeared into the house.

The beautiful garden was strangely desolate; he moved away from the fountain and his face was ghastly in the sunlight.

The hours were intolerably leaden; he reflected that he was a free man only till his enemies had the authority for his arrest; restlessness and the desire to use his liberty while he might made him leave the garden and call for his horse.

As he passed out again he saw through an open door Lady Stair sitting idly with her hands in her lap; he did not speak to her nor turn his head: but descended to the court and rode away through Edinburgh to the open country, and there at a full gallop took the summer wind across his face.

CHAPTER V
A WOMAN’S VICTORY

Twilight was gathering as Lord Stair rode back into Edinburgh; the city lights glimmered through purple haze as the June evening deepened and above the castle that stood black against the sky hung the first star.

Lord Stair was riding slowly from the gate when he had to draw aside to admit the passage of a coach and four; as it swept rattling along the narrow street he recognized the silver and murrey of Lord Wharton’s liveries.

Evidently my lord was returning to London; the Earl glanced after the coach with a strange satisfaction and smiled to himself as he noted that the blinds were drawn. Lord Wharton was likely to be afraid of the night air; he pictured him with his hands in a muff seated on cushions as the coach swung through the open gates onto the country road.

Lord Stair went on his way; there were many people about, some excitement or uneasiness appeared to be abroad; he wondered grimly if the messenger from the King had arrived and if these churls mouthed his news already.

No one recognized him in his plain riding-gear; he pulled his beaver further over his eyes and turned into the main street; here the crowd was denser; many were armed; he touched up his tired horse and was breaking into a trot when a girl stepped out from the passers-by and put her hand forcibly on his rein.

“Lord Stair!” she said in a quick whisper.

He stopped, looked down.

“Lord Stair—dinna gang hame!” she said earnestly.

He leaned from the saddle to catch her whisper. “You know me?” he asked easily.

She nodded.

“I hae seen ye ride frae the Parliament, Lord Stair,—dinna gang hame to-nicht!”

“Why, mistress?”

Her eyes glowed in the shadow of her hood.

“They’re ganging to burn yer house, Lord Stair—to-nicht—I ken it a’ for ma ain Sandy is in it—sae—dinna gang hame!”

She dropped her hand, trembling with excitement.

“Ye canna save yer house, yet ye can save yer life.”

He drew himself erect in his saddle and looked in the direction of his home.

“This is Tweeddale’s and Johnstone’s setting on.”

“Ay, Lord Stair—and the mob will make for yer life.”

“I will go and demand soldiers.”

“It willna’ serve, Lord Stair—they are a’ in league wi’ the mob.”

He knew very well that her words were true. “Thank you, mistress,” he said with a sudden smile. “But I must go home—and quickly. I should never have left the house—I did not guess at this.”

“Why, Lord Stair? Why must ye gang hame?”

“Because of the Countess: she is alone. Thank you again, mistress.”

He lifted his hat for a second and then turned rapidly down the street.

So it had come to this: often had he been face to face with popular wrath; often had he dared and flouted the whole of Scotland and now the crash had come. He glanced down at the people he rode through and his soul shook to think that he should have come to be at their mercy. His mansion was in complete darkness as he rode into the courtyard; it was with a sense of relief that he noticed the empty streets before it, the mob had not gathered yet.

No servant came forward to take his horse; he left the tired animal and entered the house.

One of the footmen stood in the hall, looking pale and frightened.

“Are you the only one?” said Lord Stair.

The man assented in a cowed manner.

“Melville—has Melville gone?”

“Yes, my lord—we heard there was a design to burn the house. Mr. Melville went and the others, my lord.”

“I think the information was correct,” said Lord Stair quietly. “You had better follow. Only first there are the horses. My own is outside—take him and the others to the old stables at the end of the garden. I think they will be safe there. Let me know that it is done and you shall be rewarded.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Lord Stair was moving down the shadows of the hall when the man called after him:

“There is a lady waiting for you in the drawing-room, my lord. She would not be denied.”

“Waiting for me?”

The Earl paused on the first stair and looked back through the darkness at the speaker.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Her name?”

“My lord, she gave none.”

Lord Stair was silent a moment. “Where is the Countess?” he asked.

The man did not answer.

“Where is she?”

“My lord, my lord.”

At the tone, the exclamation, the Earl gave a little start.

“She is in the house,” he said sharply.

Slowly, reluctantly, came the reply.

“No, my lord.”

And as the man spoke he saw the Earl put his hand out swiftly and catch hold of the banisters.

“When did she go?” came through the shadows and Lord Stair’s voice shook a little.

“Soon after Mr. Melville, my lord; when she heard they meant to burn the house, my lady put on her hat and had her mare saddled and rode away.”

“Leaving no message?”

“None, my lord.”

A pause while the shadows seemed to thicken, blotting out all traces of light; then Lord Stair spoke, quietly:

“That will do. Go and look to the horses.”

The man obeyed, disappearing quickly, and Lord Stair ascended the gloomy stairs of his deserted house.

Groping aimlessly through the darkness he pushed open the first door he came to and flung himself into a chair.

So—his wife had gone—he had never expected it, like this, so brutally.

He remembered Lord Wharton’s coach and the closed blinds and cursed himself for a fool that he had smiled—why had not some devil’s whisper prompted him to send a bullet through those deceitful windows and kill the two that rode within?

And she had talked of her honorable house! It was part of her woman’s cunning—that he might leave her—safely trusting her cold dignity!

He started up with some wild idea of following them, but by now they would be miles on the road; he did not doubt that one day he would kill Tom Wharton; but to-night it was madness; he was deserted and alone, still he had himself at least in hand to face whatever came.

Yet the next instant his impulse was to ride after them at any cost, at any price. She might have waited! A dull agony came over him, he dropped his head on his outspread arms and the dark glimmered with horror.

The curse! To the last shame and misery it was being meted out—an accursed race—accursed.

The word beat in his brain like a drum to execution.

Accursed, abhorred; great and famous as he had been but yesterday, there was not one who would stay to help him meet this moment now.

He was used to standing alone; he had an immeasurable courage, yet his wife’s defection had robbed him of half his strength.

Let her only have waited a little longer—possibly a few poor hours longer and she might have been free indeed.

He rose up blindly and felt for his sword. It was completely dark, only the long window glimmered ghostly at the other end of the room. As he moved he knocked a table over and there was a crash of china as the vases struck the floor, he paused, leaning against the wall with his hand to his sick head.

The room opened into the drawing-room by folding-doors; it seemed, as if, in that other chamber, some one was moving, some one roused by the falling table.

Suddenly a candle appeared like a star in the distance, coming nearer through the dark. His blood leaped for a moment; it might be that she had not gone—it might be that she had returned.

“Ulrica!” he cried hoarsely, “Ulrica!”

But now the candle cast a glow on the person carrying it; a woman, but too tall and stately for Lady Stair.

She came to the open doors and stopped; her light gray dress appeared luminous against the darkness, and a black hood was pushed back from her pale, set face.

She held the candle in a hand so trembling that the flame wavered and the wax dripped over her dress.

“Is it you, Lord Stair?” she said faintly. “Is it you?”

In an instant he knew her; in an instant it was all plain to him, as the key to the cipher she explained everything; his secret enemy, the one who had worked his ruin in the dark—he heard her words of three years ago as if she spoke them now.

“If you push me too far I may pull your fortunes about your feet.”

He moved into the center of the room.

“Delia,” he said, “Delia.”

She shrank back.

“Do you know me, Lord Stair?”

“I know you—and—now, what you have done.”

The candle only faintly dispelled the thunderous summer dark; crossing the threshold she stood it on the chimneypiece, where its double shone from the mirror, a dim ghost. Lord Stair’s figure showed obscurely with a trailing black shadow behind it.

“Why have you come?” he said in a low voice.

With one hand on the chimneypiece and her face showing in the flickering candle-light, Delia spoke in a quiet shuddering manner.

“As your downfall has been coming—slowly, Lord Stair, have you never thought of me? As Glencoe has been dragged to light—slowly—have you never thought of me? As your enemies have risen around you with this forged tale to dishonor you—have you not thought of me? As you have heard of witnesses suborned, of cunning lies to displace you, have you never thought of me?”

He stood immovable.

“I have thought of you. Yet I did not think this was your work.”

“No—you would not, Lord Stair—yet from the first whisper to the consummation it is my work—day and night for three weary years I have given body and soul to this end and now I think I can say—I have avenged my dead.”

Her voice had no ring of triumph in it; on her last word it fell to a sob; she leaned back against the wall and her head fell forward on her bosom.

Lord Stair came a step nearer.

“So—you set yourself to ruin me?”

“Yes, I.”

“From you sprang the tale of Glencoe?”

“Yes, from me.”

“You caused the Macdonalds to bear false witness?”

“I have been at the bottom of it all, Lord Stair.”

She raised her head.

“I have put that upon you you will never be free of,” she said wildly. “Throughout the world your name is stained with the blood of Glencoe. Nothing can efface what I have done.”

He moved still closer.

“Women are marvelous,” he said curiously. “I did not think that you so hated me.”

He took her by the shoulder and looked into her shrinking face.

“I did not think that you so hated me,” he repeated.

“Have I not cause to hate you, Lord Stair?” she demanded hoarsely. “I swore that as you had been false, cruel and merciless, that even as that dear blood cried out to me—you should pay to the last bitterness.”

His hand fell from her shoulder.

“Why have you come here now?”

She moved away blindly through the shadows, her hands clenched tight on her bosom.

“Have they all gone, Lord Stair—all?”

“Yes—they are lackeys.”

“And your wife?” said Delia suddenly.

His utter silence answered her; she turned about in a strange and desperate manner.

“Is not your wife here?”

“Do not push me, mistress,” he answered thickly. “My affairs will bear no meddling.”

Delia cried out passionately:

“Poor coward—so she could not be loyal to the last—she knew perhaps what I am come to tell you—that to-night the mob are coming here.”

“What you came to tell me?” he exclaimed.

She crushed her hands together in a helpless manner.

“They mean to kill you I think—Johnstone is setting them on—O God in Heaven!”

She turned to the mantelpiece and pressed her forehead against the marble slab; her hood had fallen back, and the candle-light flickered over the soft hazel curls.

Lord Stair was watching her.

“Your three years’ work is accomplished,” he said. “You came to tell me so?”

She was silent; her head drooped lower on the mantelshelf.

“You came to tell me so,” he demanded. “You came to triumph, Mistress Featherstonehaugh?”

He smiled faintly as he looked at her; she started at the name he used.

“I am Captain Campbell’s wife,” she said. “Glenlyon’s wife these two years.”

There was an almost imperceptible pause before he answered.

“That accounts for another false witness, Mistress Campbell.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “yes.”

“He has lied to please you?”

“What else?”

“You married Glenlyon that you might bend him to serve you now?”

This time she lifted her head and looked at him with wild eyes.

“Yes.”

“You have not stopped at anything to attain this end,” said Lord Stair. “Madam, you should be more triumphant now that it is gained.”

She advanced a step toward him.

“Yea, I am clear of my vow,” she said in a distracted manner. “I think they lie quiet in their graves—I have done it—the blood of Glencoe—it is on you—always.”

She sank into a chair, leaning forward over the arm staring across the dusk as if she saw something menacing her. Lord Stair picked up the candle and flashed it before her face.

“Why have you come here?”

She looked at him behind the candle flame, and for the first time saw his face clearly; their glance met.

“Oh, you are changed!” she said in a terrified tone.

“And you also,” he answered somberly.

With a wild little laugh she bent nearer into the circle of light.

“I have dreamt we might meet like this—through the dark—both so different.”

Her words trailed off, she put out her hands.

“Take away the light—I cannot look at you.”

She slipped from the chair to her knees.

“What have I done—what have I done!”

“Why, you should know—you have done what you set out to do.”

In a tone of numb despair she repeated: “What have I done—what have I done?”

Lord Stair set the candle on the table.

“You had better go, Mistress Campbell—and join your allies who come to burn my house.”

“I came because of that,” she answered wildly. “I came to warn you—my courage failed—I could not let it happen.”

On her knees, with her hands clasped on her bosom and her head bent, she leaned against the chair, heavily.

Lord Stair turned to her with a swift fierceness.

“This is a woman’s paltriness,” he cried. “To do the thing and lament it—I had liked you better if you had led the mob you have incited instead of this—”

“I would not have them kill you,” she murmured.

“Oh, get up from your knees,” he said, scornful. “You are true neither to your love nor to your hate! Get back to your kind and carry through what you have begun.”

There was a confused distant sound without.

“They are coming!” shrieked Delia.

“Well, you knew it,” he smiled: “Go you and join them.”

She rose to her feet; the noises, the shouts and the steady tramping were coming nearer.

“And I have done this,” whispered Delia. “What did you mean—true to neither love nor hate?”

“Look into your heart,” he answered. “Was it love that made you pull me down—was it hate that sent you here to-night?”

She caught at the chair with cold fingers.

“I have made my affections stronger than my love—I have put honor and loyalty above my heart—and I came to-night because my soul turned weak as water to think of your death.”

She paused; her breathing came with difficulty.

“Will you not go, Lord Stair?”

He had gone toward the window; a vast crowd were gathering without, the red light of torches flickered across the courtyard, and threw into view faces here and there in the sea of people.

The door was suddenly burst open and the solitary servant rushed in.

“My lord, my lord! they are certainly going to destroy us! They have gunpowder with them.”

“Save yourself,” interrupted Lord Stair,—he took a purse from his pocket and tossed it across the room.

The man groped for it in the shadows.

“There is Lumley’s, the jewelers in the Cannon Gate my lord—he is under great obligations to your lordship—if you would take shelter there.”

“You are a good fellow,” said the Earl. “Go to Lumley—I may follow—the horses are in safety?”

“My lord, yes.”

The man hesitated at the door.

“Your lordship will not try to save some of the things—papers—or plate—?”

Lord Stair laughed, a fierce sound through the darkness:

“No—nothing. What value is any of this to me compared to what I have already lost? Get you gone.”

The servant withdrew and the Earl turned swiftly to Delia.

“And you mistress, go and join your people without—do you not hear them shouting? Go and add your voice to those cursing the Dalrymples—and be content—for to-night all curses are fulfilled.”

She moved slowly nearer to him.

“And what is your thought of me, Lord Stair?”

He made an imperious gesture as if he would have swept her intruding presence aside.

“I have no thought at all for you.”

He stopped, listening; from the confusion of sounds without arose the crackling of flames; he went to the window; fagots and gunpowder had been piled in the court and flaming tarred torches flung into the midst; red lights began to dance in reflections over the floor; and smoke swept in faint clouds past the windows. Lord Stair felt a cold hand touch his and turned to look into the face of Delia.

“For God’s sake,” she whispered, “for pity’s sake.”

He made an impatient attempt to shake her off, but she clung to his hand desperately in a frenzy of entreaty.

“It is burning—don’t you see that it is burning—make haste—at the back through the garden.”

The triumphant shout of the crowd as they saw the flames rise almost drowned her voice; an unnatural red glare blinding, horrible, filled the room from end to end.

Lord Stair glanced round.

“Your work, mistress, your work,” he wrenched himself free of her. “Go without there yonder and laugh at it.”

She was crying and sobbing like a mad woman.

“What have I done—I have been crazy—crazy—”

With fallen hair and the red light over her from head to foot, she ran to the door; he followed. The door was burning, the oak stair threatened; flames were already showing in the hall.

Delia wrung her hands, shrieking and moaning to herself, calling on the living and the dead in her distraction; she ran a little way down the wide stairs, then at sight of the flaming door fell back with a scream.

“Ye should not have come,” said Lord Stair.

“Your place is with those who lit the fire.”

Her wild eyes lifted to his figure.

“Do you think I am afraid for myself?” she cried. She came back to him with outstretched hands and thrown back head; as she stood there, poised above the smoking hallway with the flickering light and shade across her distorted face, she seemed as unearthly, as terribly strange as her surroundings.

Lord Stair, gazing at her, saw the look in her eyes he had seen in his sister’s and in his own; it was as if there fronted him the evil genius of his house; once this woman had looked at him differently; as he stared at her he recalled that other expression, the other look her brown eyes had once held in place of the madness that flashed in them now.

Certainly, she was mad; he saw her against the background of the polished stairway where the flames were reflected; he saw her lean back against the balustrade with those wild eyes upon him in her uplifted face; he noticed the crimson light on the long line of her throat and in the curve of her white lips.

“Lord Stair.”

She bent forward, touched him, the hideous noise of flames gaining power, the shouting and cracking of timbers filled the air with a terrible menace.

“Lord Stair.”

Her fingers touched his arm, closed round; and he could not escape from her face, turn his eyes away.

“Speak to me,” she said; she was as calm as she had been frantic; her long hair, loosened, glowed a dusky red behind her marble white face. But he thought of his wife and would not.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

He caught hold of her, not tenderly nor roughly, indifferent, merely.

“Make haste—down the stairs,” he said. “On the first landing you may cross the library and gain the garden.”

The grasp tightened on her arm.

“Come,” he commanded, and drew her after him, leading the way.

She did not speak until he paused to open the library door, then she looked back into the flame-lit hall and cried out she would die.

Paying no heed he was dragging her into the dark room when something rushed out of the door, between them and up the stair.

“What was that?” cried Lord Stair; he let go his hold upon the woman and stepped back.

Half-way up the stairs a little black cat peered through the oaken rails with ears cocked and its green eyes glittering with excitement; round its neck was a tumbled bow of scarlet.

For a moment the man and the animal gazed at each other, then the Earl began reascending the stairs.

“What are you going to do?” cried Delia, barring his way. “You are not going back? My God! Look how the flames are mounting—they will cut off your escape.”

Lord Stair looked up at the kitten.

“It is alive,” he said, “and I cannot let it burn.”

“You are mad!” shrieked Delia, clinging to him. “The house has only a few minutes to stand—they have gunpowder.”

He pushed her aside.

“Then get you into the garden,” he answered, pointing to the library door. “There is time for that.”

“Will you leave me? Will you go to your death?”

“My life is of no moment,” he said grimly, “I shall not leave mourners—”

She caught hold of him anew.

“I love you, I love you, and you shall not leave me. I love you—I love you.”

He gave a little laugh.

“’Tis a strange affection, mistress—it has done the work of hate—let go of me.”

He twisted his arm free of her, his eyes shone curiously.

“I love you,” she whispered in bitter agony and fell back against the wall. With no look at her he mounted the stairs; she shrieked after him, called and cried. He stopped and looked down, she was standing as he had left her, half within the library door, her way of escape was clear behind her.

The little cat fled at his approach and galloped ahead of him.

He followed it almost to the top of the house across a landing and through an open door. By the red light from without he could distinctly see this room and all that it contained.

It was his wife’s bed-chamber, it looked as if she had that moment left it; by a chair stood her high-heeled house shoes, and the garden hat she had worn that morning; her dressing-table was covered with trinkets, evidently she had taken nothing with her.

He gazed strangely about the room; a little drawing caught his eye; he knew it well, Samuel Cooper’s portrait of his dead son; he went up to it and took it from the wall.

She had left it behind, she was Harry’s mother and she had done this hideous thing.

As he stood in her deserted room among the details redolent of her, he could think of nothing but this, the bitterness of the thing she had done; he forgot why he had come here, he forgot the burning house and Delia, heavily he sat down with the picture in his hand and gazed round the emptiness.

Irremediable as death and more terrible was this action of hers; he tried to adjust his mind to the difference it must make to his life. Then he considered that it was not life but death ahead of them. Confusion was over him, he could not think clearly; he rested his head against his arm and groaned aloud, then the image of Tom Wharton flashed through his agony and he rose with a bitter curse.

He slipped the picture into his pocket; where were they now? On the road to London—London. Something soft brushed against him, and he mechanically glanced down.

It was the black cat.

He remembered now why he had come and laughed weakly at his own folly as he caught up the kitten and thrust it inside his waistcoat.

Somehow, hardly knowing what he did, he stumbled to the door.

Smoke was now rising up the stairs; he felt the air heavy and stifling. In a confused way he thought of Delia, of how he had last seen her standing by the library door and what she had said.

As he descended into the smoke and glare he thought that he heard her again, calling after him, shrieking:

“Lord Stair! I love you!”

He imagined that he saw her running up the stairs toward him with her hair flaming behind her and her hands out-thrown; he felt again her fingers on his wrist and gazed into her haunting face, and then it seemed that it was not Delia, but Janet in her night-dress with a ghastly smile on her face and a ghastly smear on her arm; then again it was his wife with a face full of loathing, spurning him bitterly.

With one hand over the black cat, he made his way down to the library door.

The flames had reached it; he looked on an utter ruin; part of the outer wall had fallen and the fire roared and hissed through the black gaps of the masonary louder than the yells of the triumphant mob.

And there between the door and the foot of the stairs lay Delia, face downwards.

He cried out to her hoarsely; the flames were curling round the edge of her dress; he beat them out and dragged her up; there was a mark like a purple stain on her forehead; she had been struck down by some falling wood.

He pulled her to her feet; she hung unconscious over his arm; the house was crashing about them and the strengthening flames rippled and sang as they leaped upwards. With the strength of desperation he dragged her to the library window and there laid her down while he flung aside the encumbrances of his coat, sword and peruke.

The terrace was still clear though it glowed brightly in the light of the flames, and the garden was illumined from end to end.

Delia moaned and sat up; he helped her to her feet; she leaned heavily against him while he unfastened the long windows. With difficulty he got her across the terrace and down the gardens, and heard the mob as if it saw them; she was slipping into insensibility again; feebly she clung to him, impeding his progress, and when they reached the fountain of Hylas she fell forward heavily in his arms.

He looked down at her in a kind of cold fury. Behind him was his burning home; he saw before him a ruined life; he thought of Lady Stair—her work—all of it her work.

By the dead weight of her body he knew her unconscious; he let her slip to the grass and turned to face the burning mansion behind him.

The flames rose through the summer night magnificently terrible; the whole sky was alight with them; they blotted out the stars. And she, lying quiet enough at his feet now,—she had done it.

“My lord,” came a timid voice. “My lord.”

The servant who had remained came forward from the shadows of the trees.

“My lord,” he cried again, startled at his master’s appearance and the woman huddled on the grass.

The Earl stared at him vacantly.

“Why did you stay?”

“I did not think that they could enter the garden, my lord, and I waited for your lordship—escape is easy, my lord, by the lane beyond the stables.”

Lord Stair put his hand to his head.

“Can you get this woman to Lumley’s?”

“There are the horses, my lord—if we could carry her.”

Lord Stair was gazing at his house, flaring, flaming into the sky. He turned and helped the man to carry Delia down the garden.

“Put her on one horse, mount behind. Take with you a couple of the others.”

“Ah, my lord, quick. I see figures entering the garden.”

Lord Stair motioned to the man to begone.

“Go ahead and acquaint Lumley of my approach.”

CHAPTER VI
“THERE WAS NO MASSACRE IN GLENCOE”

In the back parlor of Lumley’s shop in the Cannon Gate, Lord Stair sat with his elbows on the table, smoking a long clay-pipe.

Along the oak settle which was drawn up close to the fire lay Delia with her head motionless on a pile of brilliant cushions and her hands slackly clasped on her bosom.

For her pallor and her stillness she might have been of marble, but now and then she moaned a little and her breast rose with her troubled breath.

Sweeping the great bruise on her temple the long hazel curls fell straightly to the floor and glimmered in the firelight.

It was a little room hung with thick and very rich stamped leather and containing the choicest of Lumley’s stock as silversmith and jeweler; on the wide mantelshelf stood a full-rigged ship in beaten gold, a great crystal glowing at the poop; either side of this were two bloodstone candlesticks finely set in silver.

A handsome walnut sideboard held goblets and vessels of all sizes and shapes, glasses cut and painted and a huge china punch-bowl decorated with flowers.

On the table at which Lord Stair sat were curios of beautiful workmanship: a salt-cellar in the form of a silver whale with a mother-of-pearl body; a warrior in rock crystal with an agate helmet; a dish of Limoges enamel, purple and green; a gold embossed vase with a ruby-eyed nymph curling round it; a Venice glass, milk-white and blue; a bronze clock with an enamel face; an Eastern dagger and women’s ornaments.

Lord Stair gazed at these things with vacant eyes; in and out of the gold and silver ran the little black cat, lightly in a ghostly silence.

There were arms and swords against the wall, flashings of steel, bronze and gold came from them as the candles flickered in their massive stand; the room was strange, gloomy, full, it seemed, of memories and ghosts of the past.

The Earl, in his frilled shirt, his long black embroidered waistcoat, his riding-boots, spurs and glittering rings; swordless, with his lace cravat undone and hanging to his knees, with his unnatural pallor and his close hair, looked in keeping with his curious background, as if he too had been called up from some earlier day; to do penance for a crime or brood over a tragedy among these tokens of wealth and splendor.

Now and then he glanced toward the woman on the settle, but with neither pity nor tenderness, coldly, indifferently, as if he cared nothing whether she lived or died.

And up through the somber air rose the thin wreaths of smoke, thin blue from his pipe and the little cat played in and out of the silverware and the drooping lace and cambric of Lord Stair’s sleeve, trailing his scarlet ribbon.

Opposite the table were the two windows, close shuttered, and between them stood a black bureau that bore a casket in bright enamel; above this hung a mirror and Lord Stair could see his own ghastly face reflected there, the dim room behind it like a mockery of himself and his thoughts.

Occasionally Delia’s little moan would break the heavy stillness and then he would look toward her with pitiless blue eyes.

She might be dying; they could do nothing for her; there was not even a better place in which to put her; Lumley did not live over his shop, the rest of the house was empty; Lord Stair’s servant had gone in search of a doctor; it was not likely, with the city in an uproar, that he would find one to come on a dangerous errand; and with every breath she drew her life was ebbing, or so, gazing on her unmoved, he thought.

As the firelight rose and fell over the crystal warrior, the ruby-eyed nymph and the still face of the dying woman, as the candles flickered and burnt nearer to their silver sticks, as the shadows advanced and receded from all dim corners, the Earl of Stair sat motionless with a hard face, and the smoke curled upwards and away round the ceiling.

Time did not exist here, it had died with the stopping of the enamel clock; everything was very old and dead, yet immortal, this room had known many yesterdays; it held no promise of a to-morrow; it owned the peace of dust and ashes, the silence of things ended, done with. Here was a place to meet fate, not to avert it; as the fire dropped to ashes, as the woman swooned into eternity, the placid warrior and the red-eyed nymph smiled up at Lord Stair with the smiles of a hundred years ago, and the emptiness of the hollow armor grinned into the likeness of a skull.

Shadows advancing, receding, and her slow breath as her soul drifted away.

If by putting out his hand he could have stopped her flight, he would not have done it; if by raising a finger he could have recalled her fainting life, he would not have done it.

It was the inevitable; let her die as the fire sank to ashes, as the ashes dropped dismally into the hearth; it was the inevitable.

Still the little cat played lightly to and fro, leaped over the hand dropped by his side and pulled at the lace on his sleeve.

The mother-of-pearl whale glittered with many colors, the candle-light circled the milk-white glass like bright wine, the immortal warrior gazed up under his agate helmet, and the siren’s eyes gave forth red sparks of light.

In a little while she would be as they; as silent as cold in death as they; as utterly beyond all speech, all question or demand, inscrutable. He looked at the clear-cut features, the sweep of the lashes, the parted lips, the locked hands and the long still figure.

She had said she loved him.

She held him guilty of things he had not done; of her friend’s betrayal, which was his father’s work; of Jerome Caryl’s mysterious death, perhaps if she had known—But none of it mattered; the tragedy was played to its close and death would draw the curtain over all explanations.

She had loved him.

He knew of no other who had; in his whole life no other.

Let her go—unquestioned.

In apathy of soul, he gazed on her and as he gazed she opened her dark eyes.

Opened wide her eyes and sat up, leaning on her elbow.

“Lord Stair.”

He could not tell if she could see him, her glance was dim and vague as if she addressed some fancied image of him.

“The blood of Glencoe,” she said slowly. “They shall never speak of you without they curse you—for Glencoe—”

She stared at the candle-light, leaning forward.

“Have I damned myself, my love—to fix this stain on you?—I feel the flames—and I have lied—you also, Lord Stair—you lied to me.”

A look of horror settled on her face.

“Don’t go—stay with me—don’t you see them—the flames? so they rose in Glencoe—you are paid—”

Her voice sank to a whisper; the last log on the hearth fell into ashes.

“Kiss me—why have you never kissed me?—you asked me when they were singing—‘for the ways of the Lord are wonderful—’ Kiss me—”

His pipe fell from his inert hand and broke into fragments on the floor.

“Lord Stair.”

He did not move from his seat.

She had fallen back on her pillow; one hand trailed along the floor.

“You asked me—Andrew—”

He remembered when he had asked her; the Abbey, her words and his.

“When you ask me—”

And now—A great silence settled on the room; shadows advancing, receding, and her breath stilled forever. The nymph’s ruby eyes flashed brilliantly; the crystal warrior smiled the same; she had gone, forever. Beyond question or explanation, inscrutable, silent. After a while he rose and went to look at her; she had died as if she had fallen asleep, he lifted her cold hand from the floor and laid it on her breast.

Then he went to the window and undid the shutters.

The slipping back of the bolts made a dismal creaking; the hinges groaned; he opened the shutters and gazed through the glimmering window-pane. A wine-colored dawn was breaking over the housetops like a stain over the sky.

From the corners of the room the shadows lifted; on all the old gold and gems a faint white light; on all the wonders of precious workmanship and on that most wonderful thing of all, the woman lying along the settle with the veil of her hair falling to the floor and her head thrown back on the bronze and purple Persian cushion which bore a sprawling dragon with emerald eyes.

Her curved mouth was parted as if that last breathing of his name had drawn her soul with it and left her lips cleft; there was no line in her smooth face, beneath the soft lashes were delicate shadows and across the sweep of her throat lay a strand of hair and its double in shade.

She was the hue of a white rose against the vivid tints of her cushions; her face was as unfathomable as her silence.

The fire had dropped into ashes; the dawn strengthening showed dust on everything; dust on the tarnished silver, on the sails of the gold ship, on the empty armor.

There were cobwebs, high up among the shelves that showed now; cobwebs clinging to and obscuring the splendor of the gold and silver.

The black cat leaped from the table, ran round the room, then began playing amid the ashes and the ends of Delia’s hair.

Lord Stair crossed to the head of the settle and stood looking at the dawn behind the diamond panes.

The curse of the Dalrymples was fulfilled now; surely, to the last bitterness, completed.

He glanced down at Delia—what had she said?—“for the ways of the Lord are wonderful”—Wonderful! he laughed to himself—she had loved him, had ruined him, and had died because she could not face what she had done. Was she a fool or a heroine?—he could look at her coldly now and wonder, though she had moved him once.

The sun rose slowly, majestic into the clear sky; red-gold rays struck into the room and caused the candle-light to look faint and sickly; the armor, swords and pistols, shone as if on fire; Lord Stair put his hand before his eyes and leaned heavily against the carved post of the settle.

The deathly stillness was broken by the soft opening of the door, the soft closing of it, and a gentle step into the room.

Lord Stair looked round.

Standing against the armor, in the strange faint lights and shades was a woman in a light dress with the red glow of the dawn in her blonde hair and over her pale face; Lady Stair, looking at him intently, eagerly, with questioning blue eyes.

“Ulrica!” he could utter no word but her name; the blood rushed into his face as he stared at her, incredulous, amazed.

“I was too late,” she said faintly; she sat down at his seat at the table; there were lines of weariness under her eyes, and her dress was tumbled. “My woman told you?” her hands holding a riding-whip, fell between the crystal warrior and the nymph on her gold vase. Lord Stair came in front of Delia, hiding her from sight.

“I have heard nothing,” he said hoarsely. “When I returned the house was empty save for one man—”

“Oh!” she glanced up, bewildered by his manner. “I heard that they were going to burn the house—I did not trust the servants—I went myself to ask the Marquis for a guard—he sent me on to the castle—and there they put such difficulties in the way—and—I was too late.”

She leaned back wearily.

“They sent some men—they are putting the fire out now—the city was in such an uproar that I could not return sooner—I thought that you might be here so I came. You never got my message?”

“No.”

She leaned forward.

“What is the matter, my lord? I did all I could.”

“Yes—ah, yes.”

He was looking at her very strangely. “Did you not guess where I had gone?”

She pressed her handkerchief to her lips and her lids fluttered in a weary manner.

Lord Stair came to the other side of the table.

“So, Ulrica, you stay to share my fallen fortunes?” he asked in a low voice.

She looked at him calmly.

“Did you think anything else of me?”

“My thoughts!” he said wildly. “Let my thoughts go—I know not what I thought—”

Their eyes met across the table of gold and silver—

“Ulrica—what made you stay?”

Her eyes widened.

“It never crossed my mind to go. Whatever they say—my place is not among your enemies.”

A little pause, then he said in a labored way: “Ulrica—I am innocent of what they impute to me—there was no massacre in Glencoe.”

“I thought so,” she answered quietly. “My lord, I thought so.”

Her hood had slipped back from her smooth hair and her sweet face was pure and pale in the rich light.

“Have you saved anything?” she asked.

Lord Stair pointed to the kitten at his feet with a half-smile.

“That,” he said, “and this—”

He drew Cooper’s drawing from his pocket and laid it by the crystal warrior.

Lady Stair’s eyes fell to it, then lifted to his face; a color came into her cheeks and she rose trembling.

As she turned she caught sight of Delia and cried out in a frightened way with blanched cheeks.

“Hush!” said Lord Stair; he was beside her looking at the dead woman. “She has fixed on me the blood of Glencoe—and she has paid—hush!”

Lady Stair shrank away, still with terror in her eyes. “Who was she?” came her whisper.

“Do you want to know? Does it matter now?”

“No! no!”

She shuddered against the table, gazing at Delia’s terrible calm against the background of the strange room.

Lord Stair looked at the burning sunrise and held out his right hand; the glowing light fell on it, a crimson stain.

“You see—the blood of Glencoe!”

He laughed magnificently and turned to his wife; his face was wild in expression, his eyes wide open. “And you, of all of them, have been faithful!”

She took her gaze from the dead woman, put out her hand and clasped his, so that the red was over her wrist, too.

“You of all!” he repeated, and his voice was unsteady. He drew her up to the table edge, close to him, her grasp of his hand tightened; her breath came fast.

“John! John!”

He looked at her in a curious manner. “You of all!” he repeated, and his eyes wandered to Delia; he turned from the living to the dead whose lie was his judgment and his punishment and he smiled bitterly.

“John!” said Lady Stair again, faintly, softly.

With a little start he turned and looked at her.

“Ah—do you understand?” she said. “At last?” In the wild light of the red morn her blonde hair glimmered against his shoulder.

“At last—Ulrica—” his voice broke, but his eyes shone as his fingers closed over hers. “My dear! my dear!” And the day dawned upon their kiss.

EPILOGUE
THE GLEN O’ WEEPING

The sun that so rarely pierces the mists that shroud the Valley of Glencoe, was to-day shining mournfully on the solitude of the Glen of Weeping.

It was mid-July and above the snow-topped mountains the sky shone coldly blue.

A keen wind whistled through the winding ravines and patches of purple, dull gold and scarlet, showed where the heather, the gorse and the rowan bloomed.

The grass was studded with harebells and the pines grew fresh and green.

Yet the scene was desolation, utter desolation; in all the vast expanse there was no human being in sight, no animal nor bird. Only, bare to the wide sky, lay the scattered, ruined huts of the Macdonalds; the little creeping wild flowers had overgrown the ashes of the charred door-posts which lay half-hidden in the grass; the storms and winds of three winters had nearly demolished what the vengeance of the Campbells had left, but still above the rough graves made by the surviving Macdonalds for their kindred rose some few traces of the village of Makian.

And now it is past midday and the sad sun has disappeared behind the distant snows; a cold mournful light fills the valley, and the hollow about the sullen water is full of shadows, to right and left silence save for the crying of the wind and sound of the swaying fir-trees.

Then the noise of bridle bells and horses coming rapidly across the heather and a cavalcade of some hundred men gallop down the mouth of the Glen; Campbells with red-blond hair.

Their leader is Breadalbane, he rides a white horse with steel and scarlet trappings, and his green and blue tartan blows out behind him across his shining cuirass; he rides easily, swiftly, with one hand on his hip above his sword and the other lightly on his reins; in his bonnet is a sprig of myrtle and his hair flutters pale as silver back from his face.

By his side is the Countess Peggy, her plaid floats from her shoulder and over her black horse; she leans forward a little in the saddle and her red curls frame a pale triumphant face.

After these come the Campbells, red gentlemen in dark tartans with faces singularly contained and hard light eyes.

Silently they ride through Glencoe, the Glen o’ Weeping, their horses’ hoofs stir the dead ashes from under the heather, they pass through the dismantled ruins, they gallop over the graves of their enemies but they raise no shout of victory, make no gesture of triumph.

It is the Campbell way.

Only as they pass through desolation, the Countess Peggy looks at her husband and he at her; their eyes meet and flash and her thin lips curve into a smile.

There—somewhere under their horses’ hoofs lies Ronald Macdonald and the Campbells are free of Glencoe and all the Highlands.

Out of the Glen o’ Weeping they come, the Campbells hard-faced, riding swiftly, and Breadalbane’s wife looks at him with a deepening of her smile.

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Silently corrected obvious punctuation errors; retained non-standard spellings and dialect.

Other changes:

• [Page 018]: He looked as her keenly → He looked at her keenly

• [Page 031]: me—tis likely → me—’tis likely

• [Page 066]: There was the sightest pause → There was the slightest pause

• [Page 068]: forget that. Macdonald → forget that, Macdonald

• [Page 109]: pebbles as is struck on → pebbles as it struck on

• [Page 133]: black peruke were powered → black peruke were powdered

• [Page 149]: and paessd through → and passed through

• [Page 149]: sixty of sixty-five → sixty or sixty-five

• [Page 154]: word as embarrassment he → word as embarrassment; he

• [Page 182]: wild angel face → wild angel faces

• [Page 186]: with an uuaccountable feeling → with an unaccountable feeling

• [Page 189]: his sword-hilt he was → his sword-hilt; he was

• [Page 203]: It is not ture → It is not true

• [Page 206]: conspirators so embroil → conspirators to embroil

• [Page 218]: wth a white hard face → with a white hard face

• [Page 232]: as she tooked up → as she looked up

• [Page 244]: I burn, alive my → I burn alive my

• [Page 249]: afraid of ’im’” → afraid of ’im,”

• [Page 254]: your Majesty” said → your Majesty,” said

• [Page 259]: that in vived blue → that in vivid blue

• [Page 270]: words, interposed “I don’t → words, interposed; “I don’t

• [Page 291]: the enemy food for → the enemy, food for

• [Page 294]: been suppressed. Glenlyon → been suppressed.” Glenlyon

• [Page 304]: Hounslow Heath which was → Hounslow Heath; which was

• [Page 309]: curled and powered → curled and powdered