"God!" cried Scarlett, fiercely. "I would I had you five minutes at a rapier's end for a posturing, lying knave—a pitiful, putty-faced dog! I cannot answer your words, though I know them to be mere tongue-shuffling. But with my sword—yes, I could answer with that!"
Barra pointed to his side.
"Had your friend—your friend's friend, I should say—not had me at her dagger's end, I should have been most honored. But the lady has spoilt my attack and parry for many a day. Nevertheless, I suffered in a good cause. For without that our general lover had hardly been allowed to enjoy the Arcadian felicities of the sand-dunes of Lis, nor yet his more recent, and I doubt not as agreeable, retirement to the caves and sea-beaches of my poor island of Fiara."
"You are the devil," cried Scarlett, writhing in fury. "But I shall live to see you damned one day!"
But Barra only smiled as he turned to confer apart a while with Roger McGhie and my lady.
Kate walked to the bulwarks and looked over. Wat stood his ground on the spot on which he had told his story; but Scarlett, as soon as he had finished, stalked away with as much dignity as upon short notice he could import into a pair of very untrustworthy sea-legs.
When the conference was over it was Roger McGhie who spoke, very quietly and gently, as was ever his ancient wont.
"Kate, my lass," he said, "I have never compelled you to aught all my life—rather it hath been the other way, perhaps too much. And I will not urge you now. Do you still wish to forsake your father for this man, whose tale you have heard—a tale which, whatever of truth may be in it, he hath certainly hid from you as long as possible? Or will you return to your own home with me, your father, and with this noble lady, to whom I give you as a daughter?"
Kate stood clasping her hands nervously and looking from one to the other of them.
But it was to Wat that she spoke.