"Look you, Master Ormerod," he replied, "I have you fast here. I have also the chief, your friend. I have in addition one you love."
"Before you proceed further," I interrupted, "I wish you to answer me one question: Whose child is she!"
He hesitated, and regarded me sidewise.
"Oh, well," he said after a moment, "it might as well out now as later. She'd tell you herself, I suppose. The maid is the child of my sister."
"And her name!"
"She is a Kerr of Fernieside," he answered pompously. "I should add, sir, that I have been at particular pains with the girl, having an especial affection for her."
"Oh," I murmured politely. "An especial affection!"
"Even so."
He bowed elegantly.
"I have treated her as my own daughter. Her father was lost in the '15, and since then, seeing that her mother was dead, I have made her my charge. She hath been well educated in a dame's school in Edinburgh."