“Aren’t we somewhere near your friend the wizard?” said Lady Florimel, with a slight tremble in the tone of mockery with which she spoke. Malcolm answered as if he were not quite certain. “Isn’t your own room somewhere hereabouts?” asked the girl sharply. “We’ll jist gang till ae ither queer place,” observed Malcolm, pretending not to have heard her, “and gien the rufe be a’ richt there, I s’ no bather my heid mair aboot it till the mornin’. It’s but a feow steps farther, an’ syne a bit stair.” A fit of her not unusual obstinacy had however seized Lady Florimel. “I won’t move a step,” she said, “until you have told me where the wizard’s chamber is.” “Ahint ye, my leddy, gien ye wull hae ’t,” answered Malcolm, not unwilling to punish her a little; “--jist at the far en’ o’ the transe there.” In fact the window in which she stood, lighted the whole length of the passage from which it opened. Even as he spoke, there sounded somewhere as it were the slam of a heavy iron door, the echoes of which seemed to go searching into every cranny of the multitudinous garrets. Florimel gave a shriek, and laying hold of Malcolm, clung to him in terror. A sympathetic tremor, set in motion by her cry, went vibrating through the fisherman’s powerful frame, and, almost involuntarily, he clasped her close. With wide eyes they stood staring down the long passage, of which, by the poor light they carried, they could not see a quarter of the length. Presently they heard a soft foot-fall along its floor, drawing slowly nearer through the darkness; and slowly out of the darkness grew the figure of a man, huge and dim, clad in a long flowing garment, and coming straight on to where they stood. They clung yet closer together. The apparition came within three yards of them, and then they recognized Lord Lossie in his dressing-gown. They started asunder. Florimel flew to her father, and Malcolm stood, expecting the last stroke of his evil fortune. The marquis looked pale, stern, and agitated. Instead of kissing his daughter on the forehead as was his custom, he put her from him with one expanded palm, but the next moment drew her to his side. Then approaching Malcolm, he lighted at his the candle he carried, which a draught had extinguished on the way. “Go to your room, MacPhail,” he said, and turned from him, his arm still round Lady Florimel. They walked away together down the long passage, vaguely visible in flickering fits. All at once their light vanished, and with it Malcolm’s eyes seemed to have left him. But a merry laugh, the silvery thread in which was certainly Florimel’s, reached his ears, and brought him to himself. CHAPTER LVI. SOMETHING FORGOTTEN.