It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder—­a place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent many tranced hours.

The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself through the green turf.  William Douglas stood beside her pulling a blade of bracken to pieces.  The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north, where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge.  The girl was speaking slowly and softly.

“Nay, Earl Douglas,” she said, “marriage must not be named to Sybilla de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine.  He must wed for riches and fair provinces.  His house is regal already.  He is better born than the King, more powerful also.  The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtoce, is not for him.”

“A Douglas makes many sacrifices,” said the young man with earnestness; “but this is not demanded of him.  Four generations of us have wedded for power.  It is surely time that one did so for love.”

The girl reached him her hand, saying softly:  “Ah, William, would that it had been so.  Too late I begin to think on those things which might have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate star.  As it is I can only go on—­a terror to myself and a bane to others.”

The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.

“The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I might possess you,” he answered.

The girl laughed a strange laugh, and drew back her hand from his.

“Possess me, well—­but marry me—­no.  Honest men and honourable like Earl Douglas do not wed with the niece of Gilles de Retz.  I had thought my heart within me to be as flint in the chalk, yet now I pray you on my knees to leave me.  Take your thirty lances and your young brother and ride home.  Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve, blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars.”

“But,” said the young Earl, passionately, “tell me why so, my lady.  I do not understand.  What obstacle can there be?  You tell me that you love me, that you are not betrothed.  Your kinsman is an honourable man, a marshal and an ambassador of France, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany, a reigning sovereign.  Moreover, am not I the Douglas?  I am responsible to no man.  William Douglas may wed whom he will—­king’s daughter or beggar wench.  Why should he not join with the honourable daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?”