'Then,' said she, 'since this bitter strife and the killing of friends must somehow be stopped, and since you would not stop it even for me—who am I that I should not be at my father's command, to give and to take, to be sold and bought like a beast in the market-place?'
'Who talks of buying and selling?' interrupted Bargany, roughly. 'Give me but a look of your eyes, and I will carry you to my house of Bargany, and see if any dare to take you from the safe keeping of Gilbert Kennedy.'
'And my father?' said she, speaking very quietly, but clearly, so that I heard every word.
'Your father,' answered Bargany, 'is a good man—too good for such a crew. He has married one daughter to the young Sheriff of Galloway. Wherefore not another to his cousin of Bargany? Is not Kennedy of Bargany, even though he be an enemy, better than any noltish Galloway laird?'
'Ah,' said Marjorie Kennedy, softly, 'but there is another reason—'
'Tell it me and I will answer it,' said Bargany, with a swift fierceness, for I think he imagined that he was making head against her scruples. But I had heard her speak in that still way before, and could have told him different.
'Isobel Stewart, bower-maiden to the Queen, and the Earldom of Carrick—they are surely reasons enough!' said Marjorie Kennedy.
Bargany started as though an adder had stung him. For a moment he seemed bereft of speech.
'Who has been lying to you of me?' he said, almost under his breath, as though the night air had suddenly made him hoarse.
'Nay, think again,' said Marjorie; 'is it not true? Better a soiled bower-maiden of the King's court and an earldom with her, than poor Marjorie Kennedy of Culzean in her smock!'