"Caught in the act!" said a rough voice. "Shoot the young devil, sergeant!"
Something cold touched her forehead. Her heart gave a great bound. Was this death--oh, Duke--Duke!
The flash of a bull's-eye lantern turned full on her showed her face deadly pale but firm.
"Hold hard!" cried another voice hastily. "The fellow carries a water-bottle--of our pattern, too! Give the devil his due, Mac."
She could see faintly now. They were Highlanders; a search party evidently, and the blood rushed back to heart and face.
"I'm doing no harm!" she cried hotly. "He asked me--to take and give--his heart."
At her first word the cold nozzle of the revolver had left her forehead.
"By God!" came in a murmur; but for the most part the little group of men were startled out of speech and stood staring at the figure before them, holding out in apology what it held.
It was only a pinchbeck locket with a woman's face in it--a pinchbeck locket in the form of a heart.
"What the devil are you doing here in that kit, you young oaf?" said an angry voice at last. "I as nearly shot you as a carrion crow as ever----" It paused; something in the situation seemed to bring silence. The stars overhead, the dead lover at their feet, the tall, slim mysterious figure holding out the symbol of something that had survived death.