“Marjory,” Archie said, when he and the girl were alone, “I fear that you will think my wooing rude and hasty, but the times must excuse it.  I would fain have waited that you might have seen more of me before I tried my fate; but in these troubled days who can say where I may be a week hence, or when I can see you again were I once separated from you!  Therefore, dear, I speak at once.  I love you, Marjory, and since the day when you came like an angel into my cell at Dunstaffnage I have known that I loved you, and should I never see you again could love none other.  Will you wed me, love?”

“But the king tells me, Sir Archie,” the girl said, looking up with a half smile, “that he wishes you to wed the Lady Mary Kerr.”

“It is a dream of the good king,” Archie said, laughing, “and he is not in earnest about it.  He knows that I have never set eyes on the lady or she on me, and he was but jesting when he said so to you, having known from me long ago that my heart was wholly yours.”

“Besides,” the girl said hesitating, “you might have objected to wed Mistress Kerr because her father was an enemy of yours.”

“Why dwell upon it?” Archie said a little impatiently.  “Mistress Kerr is nothing in the world to me, and I had clean forgotten her very existence, when by some freak or other she sent her retainers to fight under my command.  She may be a sweet and good lady for what I know; she may be the reverse.  To me she is absolutely nothing; and now, Marjory, give me my answer.  I love you, dear, deeply and truly; and should you say, ‘Yes,’ will strive all my life to make you happy.”

“One more question, Archie, and then I will answer yours.  Tell me frankly, had I been Mary Kerr instead of Marjory MacDougall, could you so far forget the ancient feud between the families as to say to me, ‘I love you.’”

Archie laughed.

“The question is easily answered.  Were you your own dear self it would matter nought to me were your name Kerr, or MacDougall, or Comyn, or aught else.  It is you I love, and your ancestors or your relations matter to me not one single jot.”

“Then I will answer you,” the girl said, putting her hand in his.  “Archie Forbes, I love you with my whole heart, and have done so since I first met you; but,” she said, drawing back, as Archie would have clasped her in his arms, “I must tell you that you have been mistaken, and that it is not Marjory MacDougall whom you would wed, but Mary, whom her uncle Alexander always called Marjory, Kerr.”

“Marjory Kerr!” Archie repeated, in astonishment.

“Yes, Archie, Marjory or Mary Kerr.  The mistake was none of my making; it was you called me MacDougall; and knowing that you had reason to hate my race I did not undeceive you, thinking you might even refuse the boon of life at the hands of a Kerr.  But I believed that when you thought it over afterwards you would suspect the truth, seeing that it must assuredly come to your ears if you spoke of your adventure, even if you did not already know it, that Sir John Kerr and Alexander of Lorne married twin sisters of the house of Comyn.  You are not angry, I hope, Archie?”