“You have indeed small cause to think so,” she answered without taking offence.  “Yet, having no choice, you must e’en trust me.”

She turned sharply upon Sholto with a strip of paper in her outstretched hand.

“I think, young sir, that you have some reason to know from whom that comes.”

Sholto grasped at the writing with a new and wonderful hope in his heart.  He knew instinctively before he touched it that none but Maud Lindesay could have written that script—­small, clear, and distinct as a motto cut on a gem.

“To our friends in France and Scotland,” so it ran. “We are still safe this eve of the Blessed Saint Michael.  Trust her who brings this letter.  She is our saviour and our only hope in a dark and evil place.  She is sorry for that which by her aid hath been done.  As you hope for forgiveness, forgive her.  And for God’s dear sake, do immediately the thing she bids you.  This comes from Margaret de Douglas and Maud Lindesay.  It is written by the hand of M. L.”

The wax at the bottom was sealed in double with the boar’s head of Lindesay and the heart of Margaret of Douglas.

Sholto, having read the missive silently, passed it to the Lord James that he might prove the seals, for it was his only learning to be skilled in heraldry.

“It is true,” he said; “I myself gave the little maid that ring.  See, it hath a piece broken from the peak of the device.”

“My lady,” said Sholto, “that which you bring is more than enough.  We kiss your hand and we will sacredly do all your bidding, were it unto the death or the trial by fire.”

Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, the Lord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla de Thouars.  But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled it upon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly as upon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.

“I thank you for your overmuch courtesy,” the girl said, casting her eyes on the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modest maid; “I thank you, indeed.  You do me honour far above my desert.  Still, after all, we work for one end.  You have, it is true, the nobler motive,—­the lives of those you love; but I the deadlier,—­the death of one I hate!  Hearken!”

She paused as if to gather strength for that which she had to reveal, and then, reaching her hands out, she motioned the three men to gather more closely about her, as if the blue Atlantic waves or the red boles of the pine trees might carry the matter.

“Listen,” she said, “the end comes fast—­faster than any know, save I, to whom for my sins the gift of second sight hath been given.  I who speak to you am of Brittany and of the House of De Thouars.  To one of us in each generation descends this abhorred gift of second sight.  And I, because as a child it was my lot to meet one wholly given over to evil, have seen more and clearer than all that have gone before me.  But now I do foresee the end of the wickedest and most devilish soul ever prisoned within the body of man.”