"Ah, Lochinvar," she cooed, "what is this we have heard of you? You come on board the Sea Unicorn off the isle of Suliscanna with one fair maid; you left the city of Amersfort with another. I fear me you have as little as ever of the grace of constancy. But after all, young men, alas! still will be young men. And indeed the age is noways a constant one!"
And my lady sighed as if the fatal gifts of constancy and continence had been the ever-present blights of her own life.
Then, suddenly as the lightning that shines from east to west, it flashed upon Wat how foolish he had been not to tell Kate all the story of the Little Marie. He realized now how easily, nay, how inevitably, all that had happened at the prison and among the sand-dunes might be used to his hurt. So, flushing to the temples, he stood silent.
Kate turned to her lover. A happy light of confidence shone in her eye.
"Tell my lady," she said, "that in her eagerness to think well of you according to her lights, she has given ear to false rumors. Tell her that it was to rescue me from the cruel treachery of my Lord Barra that you broke the prison bars and came over land and sea to take me out of his hands."
Barra smiled subtly, looking keenly at Wat from under the drooping eyelids of his triangular eyes, which glittered like the points of bayonets.
"It is indeed true," said Wat, at last, forcing himself to speak, "that I—that I escaped out of prison and traced this maid over land and sea till I found her a captive on the island of Suliscanna. It was my intention—"
"To return her to her father's care, no doubt," said Barra, dropping his words carefully, like poison into a bowl.
"To beseech her to wed with me so soon as I should reach the main-land," said Wat, bravely.
A change came over the countenance of my Lady Wellwood at the words. Though she had married Roger McGhie, it was not in her nature to let any former gallant cavalier escape her snares, nor yet to permit her plans of great political alliances in the future, based upon the girl's union with Barra, to be brought to naught.