“Nay, ask me not,” answered Sholto, “I am little skilled in matters spiritual.  I should try sword point and arrowhead on such gentry, and if these do them no harm, why then I think they will not distress me much.”

But all the same he said nothing to the girl about the red blood on his sword or the splashed gouts on the steps of the staircase.

He followed Maud Lindesay into her chamber, and being arrived there, lifted couch and all in his arms, with an ease born of long apprenticeship to the forehammer.  The girl regarded him with admiration which she was careful not to dissemble.

“You are very strong,” she said.  Then, after a pause, she added, “Margaret and I like strong men.”

The heart of the youth was glad within him, thus to be called a man, even though he kept saying over and over to himself:  “She means it not!  She means it not!  She loves the Earl!  I know well she loves the Earl!”

Maud Lindesay paused a moment before the chamber door of her little charge, finger on lip, listening.

“She sleeps—­go quietly,” she whispered, holding the door open for him.  He set down the bed where she showed him—­by the side of the small slumbering figure of the Maid of Galloway.

Then he went softly to the door.  The girl followed him.  “You will not be far away,” she said doubtfully and with a perilous sort of humility, “if this dreadful thing should come back again?  I—­that is we, would feel safer if we knew that you—­that any one strong and brave was near at hand.”

Then the heart of Sholto broke out in quick anger.

“Deceive me not,” he cried, “I know well that the Earl loves you, and that you love him in return.”

“Well, indeed, were it for my lord Earl if he loved as honest a woman,” said Maud Lindesay, pouting disdainfully.  “But what is such a matter, yea or nay, to you?”

“It is all life and happiness to me,” said Sholto, earnestly.  “Ah, do not go—­stay a moment.  I shall never sleep this night if you go without giving me an answer.”

“Then,” said the girl, “you will be the more in the line of your duty, which allows not much sleep o’ nights.  You are but a silly, petulant boy for all your fine captaincy.  I wish it had been Landless Jock.  He would never have vexed me with foolish questions at such a time.”

“But I love you, and I demand an answer,” cried Sholto, fuming.  “Do you love the Earl?”

“What do you think yourself now?” she said, looking up at him with an inimitable slyness, and pronouncing her words so as to imitate the broad simplicity of countryside speech.

Sholto vented a short gasp or inarticulate snort of anger, at which Maud Lindesay started back with affected terror.

“Do not fright a poor maid,” she said.  “Will you put me in the castle dungeon if I do not answer?  Tell me exactly what you want me to say, and I will say it, most mighty captain.”