"I cannot, my Lord Barra," she made him answer; "love comes not like a careful man-servant. It runs not like a well-trained dog at the sounding of a whistle. One cannot draw back the arras of the heart and say to love, 'Hither and speedily!' The wind bloweth, say the preachers, where it listeth. And so love also comes not with observation. Rather, like a thunderstorm, it bears victoriously up against the wind. For just when the will is most set against love, then it takes completest possession of the heart." "Could you have loved me," he asked, more calmly, "if you had known no other? If the other existed not?" "That I know not," said Kate. "All my life long I have never loved man or woman where I wanted to love, or was bid to love. Whether, therefore, in this case or that one could have loved serves no purpose in the asking. Nor, indeed, can it be answered. For the only issue is, that of a surety I love you not. And do you, my lord, of your most gentle courtesy, take that answer as one frankly given by an honest maid, and so depart content. There are in this land and in our own country a thousand fairer, a thousand worthier than I." "Kate," said Barra, more intently and tenderly than he had yet spoken, "some day, and in some isle of quiet bliss where all evil and untoward things are put behind us, I will yet make you love me. For never have I thus set all my fancy on any woman before. And by the word of Murdo, Lord of Barra, none but you will I wed, and, by the honor of my clan, no other shall have you but I!" He held out his hand. Kate, desiring him to go, gave him hers a little reluctantly. He bent to it and kissed it fervently. "On this hand I swear," he said, slowly and solemnly, "that while I live it shall be given in marriage to none other, but shall be mine alone. By the graves that are green on the Isle of Ashes and by the honor of the thirty chieftains of Barra--I swear it." Kate took her hand quickly again to her. "Ye have taken a vain oath, my lord," she said, "for marriage and the giving of a hand are not within the compulsion of one, but are the agreement of two. And if this hand is ever given to a man my heart shall go with it, or else Kate McGhie's marriage-bed shall be her resting-grave!" * * * * * It was but two years since the Little Marie had carried her first basket of flowers to the streets of Brussels. From an ancient farm nigh to the city she had come, bringing with her her fresh complexion, her beauty, her light, swift, confident, easily influenced spirit.