Her voice was so sweet and low that William Douglas, listening to it, wished that she would speak on for ever.

“The hour grows late,” he said, remembering himself.  “You must have far to ride.  Let me be your escort homewards if you have none worthier than I.”

“Alas,” she answered, smiling yet more subtly, “I have no home near by.  My home is very far and over many turbulent seas.  I have but a maiden’s pavilion in which to rest my head.  Yet since I and my company must needs travel through your domains, Earl William, I trust you will not be so cruel as to forbid us?”

“Yes,”—­he was smiling now in turn, and catching somewhat of the gay spirit of the lady,—­“as overlord of all this province I do forbid you to pass through these lands of Galloway without first visiting me in my house of Thrieve!”

The lady clapped her hands and laughed, letting her palfrey pace onwards through the woodland glades bridle free, while Black Darnaway, compelled by his master’s hand, followed, tossing his head indignantly because it had been turned from the direction of his nightly stable on the Castle Isle.

CHAPTER III

TWO RIDING TOGETHER

“Joyous,” she cried, as they went, “Oh, most joyous would it be to see the noble castle and to have all the famous two thousand knights to make love to me at once!  To capture two thousand hearts at one sweep of the net!  What would Margaret of France herself say to that?”

“Is there no single heart sufficient to satisfy you, fair maid?” said the young man, in a low voice; “none loyal enough nor large enough for you that you desire so many?”

“And what would I do with one if it were in my hands,” she said wistfully; “that is, if it were a worthy heart and one worth the taking.  Ever since I was a child I have always broken my toys when I tired of them.”

The voices of the singing children on the green came more faintly to their ears, but the words were still clear to be understood.

"Off to prison you must go, you must go, you must go,
Off to prison you must go,
My fair lady!"

“You hear?  It is my fate!” she said.

“Nay,” answered the Earl, passionately, still looking in her eyes.  “Mine, mine—­not yours!  Gladly I would go to prison or to death for the love of one so fair!”

“My lord, my lord,” she laughed, with a tolerant protest in her voice, “you keep up the credit of your house right nobly.  How goes the distich?  My mother taught it me upon the bridge of Avignon, where also as here in Scotland the children dance and sing.”

    “First in the love of Woman,
      First in the field of fight,
     First in the death that men must die,
      Such is the Douglas’ right!”

“Here and now,” he said, still looking at her, “’tis only the first I crave.”

“Earl William, positively you must come to Court!” she shrilled into sudden tinkling laughter; “there be ladies there more worthy of your ardour than a poor errant maiden such as I.”