’Why, once she slipped out of his very fingers; that time that he had laid hands on her, and the hirpling doited brother of hers cam down with a strange knight, put her into St. Abbs, and made off for England—­so they said.  Some of the rogues would have it ’twas St. Andrew in bodily shape, and that he tirled the young laird, as was only fit for a saint, aff to heaven wi’ him; for he was no more seen in these parts.’

‘Nay, that couldna be,’ put in another soldier.  ’Sandy M’Kay took his aith that he was in the English camp—­more shame till him—­an’ was stickit dead for meddling between King Harry’s brother and his luve.  It sorted him weel, I say.’

‘Aweel!’ continued the first; ‘gane is he, and sma’ loss wi’ him!  An’ yon old beldame over at St. Abbs, she kens weel how to keep a lass wi’ a tocher—­so what does the Master but sends a letter ower to our Prior, bidding him send two trusty brethren, as though from the King, to conduct her to Whitby?’

‘Ha!’ said Malcolm; ‘but that’s ower the Border.’

’Even so; but the Glenuskies are all English at heart, and it sicker trained away the silly lassie.’

’And then?’—­the other man-at-arms laughed.

’Why, at the first hostelry, ye can guess what sort of nuns were ready to meet her!  I promise ye she skirled, and ca’ed Heaven and earth to help; but Brother Simon and Brother Ringan gave their word they’d see nae ill dune to her, and she rade with them on each side of her, and us tall fellows behind and before, till we cam to Doune.’

‘And what became of her, the poor lassie, then?’ inquired Malcolm, steadying his voice with much effort.

‘Ye maun ask the Master that,’ said the soldier.  ’I ken nae mair; I was sent on anither little errand of the Earl of Fife into the Highlands, and only cam back hither a week syne, to watch the Border.’

‘Had it been St. Andrew that saved her before, he wad hae come again,’ pondered the lay-brother.  ‘He’d hardly hae given her up.’

’Weel, I heard the lassie cry on the Master to mind the aith he had made the former time; an’ though he tried to laugh her to scorn, his eyes grew wild, and there were some that tell’d me they lookit to see that glittering awsome knight among them again!  My certie, they maun hae been feared enow the time he did come.’

Malcolm had now had his fears and suspicions so far confirmed, that he perceived what his course should next be.  Strange to say, in spite of the horror of knowing his sister to have been a whole year in Walter Stewart’s power, he was neither hopeless nor disheartened.  Lilias seemed to have kept her persecutor at bay once, and she might have done so again—­if only by the appeal to the mysterious relic, on which his oath to abstain from violence had been sworn.  And confidence in Esclairmonde’s prayers continued to buoy him up, as he recited his own, and formed his designs for ascertaining whether she were to be found at Doune—­either as wife, or as captive, to Walter, Earl of Fife and heir of Albany.