“It has a great deal to do with it, your ladyship.  It has everything to do with it, as I shall soon prove to your grace.  Take no offence, dear lady.  I won’t use any name to trouble you.  And I won’t say anything but what I can prove.  Will you let me go on on them terms, your ladyship?” humbly inquired the messenger.

“Yes, yes, if you only WILL be quick.  I wish you to go on.  I believe you to mean well, though I do not exactly know what you really do mean,” said Salome, nervously.

“Well, then, my lady, if you ever heard of this handsome Highland peasant girl, called Rose Cameron, you must have heard that she lived long of her old father, a shepherd, dwelling at the foot of Ben Lone, near by where—­a—­a certain person had his shooting-lodge.  My dear lady, it is the same wicked old story as we hear over and over again, and a many times too often.  Well, the young man—­a certain person, I mean—­while at his shooting-box, foot of Ben Lone, happened to see this handsome lass, and fell in love with her at first sight, as certain persons sometimes do with young peasant girls as they oughtn’t to marry.  But mayhap your ladyship have heard all this before.”

Salome had heard it all before; and now, in silence and sadness, she was wondering what she had to hear more; but certainly not expecting to hear the degrading revelation her visitor had still to make.

“Well, my lady,” resumed the visitor, “a certain person courted handsome Rose Cameron a long time, trying to coax her to accept of his heart without his hand, after the manner of certain persons, to poor and pretty young girls.  But the handsome peasant was as proud as a princess, and so she was.  And she would see him hanged first, and so she would, before she would degrade herself for him, especially as she wasn’t overmuch in love with him herself, but only pleased with his preference, and proud to show him off.  She didn’t worship him at all.  She worshiped herself, my lady.  And she could take care of herself and keep him in his place, even while she sort of encouraged his attentions.  That was the secret of her power over him, my lady.  She would neither take him on his terms nor let him go.  And the more she resisted him the more he fell down and worshiped her, until, at length, he was ready to give up everything for her sake, and offer her marriage.  That was what she really wanted to fetch him to, for she was ambitious as well as honest—­that she was!  Are you listening to me, my lady?”

“I am listening,” breathed the bride, in a faint voice.

She had turned her chair around, so that her weary head could rest upon the corner of the dressing-table, where she now leaned, face downward, on her spread hands.

“Well, my lady, when she had fetched him to that pass as to offer her marriage, she took him at his word, and he brought her up to London.  And they were married, sure enough, in the old church at St. Margaret’s near by where I live, in Westminster.”