Quick as his wicked thought, Achanna let his handkerchief drop in the same place, and adroitly picked them up together. "Good," he muttered, "this may prove useful." We shall soon see what use he made of this ring. Cautious in action, stealthy in step and eye, sharp in question but vague in answer--his eyes and ears ever open, and his tongue always prepared to speak in an age when men were slower in word than deed,--James Achanna was indeed a fitting tool for an unscrupulous feudal lord. Taking the opportunity of the Dyck Graf addressing a few words to the countesses of Douglas and Ormond, he said to the earl in a whisper,--"Would it please you, my lord, to play a game with me at tables?" Then perceiving that the earl glanced at him with some disdain in his eye and hauteur in his manner, the politic Achanna added in a low voice,--"I have that to say which must be said instantly, and which none must overhear." "Oh, we are to play a double game!" replied the earl with a sudden glance of intelligence; "bring hither the tables, the men, and the dice." Achanna and he withdrew into the recess of a window. The tables were speedily opened, the men were marshalled, and the game began; but Achanna waited until his lord should make the first move. "Proceed," said the latter impatiently. "I am, then, to make the first move?" "If it please you--begin." They bent their heads near, as if interested in the game, and proceeded to push their men about vaguely, but vigorously. "I told you, my lord, that I had met a certain Laird of Luaig," commenced Achanna. "Yes, yes, at Grave." "Well, I had my suspicions that the pretended laird of Luaig was no other than he we all wot of." "Whom mean you--Gray?" "Sir Patrick Gray of Foulis, captain of the king's guard; and now my suspicions are confirmed." The earl started, and his eyes flashed with dusky fire, but controlling his emotion he simply asked,--"How?" "I discovered him by watching the Lady Murielle. Cogsbones! I knew that the cock bird would soon find the hen." "Sirrah," said the earl frowning, "you speak of a sister of the countess of Douglas--quick to the point, lest I hang you from that window by one of the curtain ropes!" "Your pardon, Lord Earl; my speech is ruder than my thoughts," cringed the other. "Quick!" continued the earl, almost grinding his teeth. In a few words Achanna rapidly related the interview, which, _by chance_, he had overheard, in the church of St. Genevieve, and the earl was filled by such a tempest of anger that he became all but speechless; yet by a great effort of self-control, an effort the more painful that such exertion was quite unusual--he contented himself by glaring from under his black bushy eyebrows at poor unconscious Murielle with an expression as if he would have annihilated her. "Think you the abbot took her there to meet him?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. "Where?" "Thou ass! to the church of St. Genevieve?"