He stared at her with his blue eyes vague and fixed; she shrieked out thinly:
“God’s name—who are you?”
“We conjure in the Devil’s name!” he answered madly. “I am of the cursed Dalrymples—and I am damned in the name of John, Master of Stair!”
CHAPTER XI
THE MASTER OF STAIR
The sound of his own name seemed to sober the man; he sank down heavily into a chair, clutching his sword, his wild vacant eyes staring before him. Celia Hunt stood dumbly regarding him, disbelief and fear in her face. The Master of Stair!
She had heard of him as the fiercest of Whigs, one of the most powerful men in the three Kingdoms, the friend of William of Orange—and the ruler of Scotland—yet he was here doing spy’s work and needlessly revealing himself! It was incredible; yet she had heard that the Dalrymples were mad—and accursed: if this were not he, why should he lie: claim so burdensome a title.
She crept a little closer.
“You are the Master of Stair?” she whispered. “You ask me to believe that?”
He looked up at her and his eyes were not the eyes of any mere ordinary man, she thought.
“I am John Dalrymple,” he said, “what have you heard of me that you shrink away so?”