"Then," said Barra, "they had been greatly the better of remembering it in the Low Country. I speak with some heat, for I carry here in my side the unhealed wound dealt me in revenge by the knife of a girl of the streets whom Wat Gordon of Lochinvar took with him in his flight." And still pale from his long illness, my Lord Barra in his dress of black velvet certainly appeared a most interesting figure to my lady of Balmaghie, who had a natural eye for such. Then, taking courage from her evident sympathy, he went on to tell how with the help of Captain Smith of the _Sea Unicorn_, a respectable magistrate of the county of Dorset, he had again "rescued" Kate McGhie from her perilous position; how he had aided her to escape to the home of a lowland woman of good family, the wife of one of his own vassals, on the safe and suitable island of Suliscanna, to which place he asked the favor of the company, of "Her Grace"--he desired pardon--of the Lady Balmaghie and her husband. Whereupon, with voluble good-will from the lady and a certain dry and silent acquiescence from Roger McGhie, my Lord of Barra obtained his request. And so behold them sitting together when the _Sea Unicorn_ overhauled the tide-driven boat of our young adventurers, and the treacherous sea-mists delivered Kate and her lover into the hands of the enemies of their loves. "You are very welcome on board the ship _Sea Unicorn_," said Barra, bowing to the pair as they stood hand-in-hand on the deck. Wat could not utter a word, so appalling a hopelessness pressed upon his spirit, such blank despair tore like an eagle at his heart. But the lady of Balmaghie smiled upon him, even as of old her Grace the Duchess of Wellwood had done. Then she shook her head with coquettish reproach. "Ah, Lochinvar," she cooed, "what is this we have heard of you? You come on board the _Sea Unicorn_ off the isle of Suliscanna with one fair maid; you left the city of Amersfort with another. I fear me you have as little as ever of the grace of constancy. But after all, young men, alas! still will be young men. And indeed the age is noways a constant one!" And my lady sighed as if the fatal gifts of constancy and continence had been the ever-present blights of her own life. Then, suddenly as the lightning that shines from east to west, it flashed upon Wat how foolish he had been not to tell Kate all the story of the Little Marie. He realized now how easily, nay, how inevitably, all that had happened at the prison and among the sand-dunes might be used to his hurt. So, flushing to the temples, he stood silent. Kate turned to her lover. A happy light of confidence shone in her eye. "Tell my lady," she said, "that in her eagerness to think well of you according to her lights, she has given ear to false rumors. Tell her that it was to rescue me from the cruel treachery of my Lord Barra that you broke the prison bars and came over land and sea to take me out of his hands."