All this I had time to note before Lord Balmerino rejoined me and led me forward to the presentation. The Prince separated himself from the group about him and came lightly down the steps to meet me. I fell on my knee and kissed his hand, but the Prince, drawing me to my feet, embraced me. "My gallant Montagu," he cried warmly. "Like father, like son. God knows I welcome you, both on your own account and because you are one of the first English gentlemen to offer his sword to the cause of his King." I murmured that my sword would be at his service till death. To put me at my ease he began to question me about the state of public feeling in England concerning the enterprise. What information I had was put at his disposal, and I observed that his grasp of the situation appeared to be clear and incisive. He introduced me to the noblemen and chiefs about him, and I was wise enough to know that if they made much of me it was rather for the class I was supposed to represent than for my own poor merits. Presently I fell back to make way for another gentleman about to be presented. Captain Macdonald made his way to me and offered a frank hand in congratulation. "'Fore God, Montagu, you have leaped gey sudden into favour. Deil hae't, Red Donald brought with him a hundred claymores and he wasna half so kenspeckle (conspicuous). I'll wad your fortune's made, for you hae leaped in heels ower hurdies," he told me warmly. From affairs of state to those of the heart may be a long cast, but the mind of one-and-twenty takes it at a bound. My eye went questing, fell on many a blushing maid and beaming matron, at last singled out my heart's desire. She was teaching a Highland dance to a graceful cavalier in white silk breeches, flowered satin waistcoat, and most choicely powdered periwig, fresh from the friseur. His dainty muff and exquisite clouded cane depended from a silken loop to proclaim him the man of fashion. Something characteristic in his easy manner, though I saw but his back, chilled me to an indefinable premonition of his identity. Yet an instant, and a turn in the dance figure flung into view the face of Sir Robert Volney, negligent and unperturbed, heedless apparently of the fact that any moment a hand might fall on his shoulder to lead him to his death. Aileen, to the contrary, clearly showed fear, anxiety, a troubled mind--to be detected in the hurried little glances of fearfulness directed toward her brother Malcolm, and in her plain eagerness to have done with the measure. She seemed to implore the baronet to depart, and Volney smilingly negatived her appeal. The girl's affronted eyes dared him to believe that she danced with him for any other reason than because he had staked his life to see her again and she would not have his death at her door. Disdain of her own weakness and contempt of him were eloquent in every movement of the lissom figure. 'Twas easy to be seen that the man was