’Cousin,’ said Earl John, ’you have doubtless abundant proof to support these strange charges?’ Marjorie Kennedy stood up among us, tall like a lily flower, and she held her head erect. ’Hear you, John of Cassillis, and all men,’ she said. ’I will tell my tale. Of my own griefs I will say naught, for in no realm do a woman’s heart-breakings count for a docken’s value. It is enough that my father in the simplicity of his heart gave me to this man, as an innocent sacrifice is cast to a monster to appease his ravening. These many months I dwelt in this man’s castle. I have been prisoned, starved, tortured—yet all the Mures in Auchendrayne could neither prevail to break my resolve, nor yet could they close my mouth concerning the things which I saw. ’And now I, that am no more bound to this man than I was when he took me out of my father’s house of Culzean—I, who have never looked upon him that is my wedded husband save with eyes of hatred, never lain by his side, stand here to denounce James Mure and his father for black, cruel, repeated, defenceless MURDER!’ *CHAPTER XLIV* *THE MURDER UPON THE BEACH* Marjorie Kennedy rang out the last words like a trumpet. Not even the Earl’s herald could have been heard further. ’All men hear my tale before they judge,’ she went on. ’It was the morn before my father’s death-day. From my window in the house of Auchendrayne I had seen this man and his father, with Thomas of Drummurchie and Walter of Cloncaird, come and go all day with trappings and harness, because they knew that the time was nigh at hand for my father’s riding to Edinburgh. It chanced that I was looking down through the bars of my prison-house, for there was little else to do in the house of Auchendrayne. It was about eleven of the clock when I saw a young lad, dusty from head to foot, venture a little way within the castle yett and stand as one that looks about him, not knowing where to turn. The court was void and silent, and the lad seemed distressed. But while he thus stood James Mure and his father came down the turnpike stair and stepped, talking whisperingly together, out into the flagged court. ’It was John Mure the elder who first saw the lad and called him. I saw the boy put a letter into his hand, the which he opened carefully and read, passing it to his son, who read also. Then James Mure stepped back and called Thomas of Drummurchie and Cloncaird. They came both of them, and the four bent their heads together over the writing. ’Then in a little John Mure closed the letter again as it had been and gave it with certain charges to the boy.’ ’Saw you that letter or knew you aught of its contents?’ asked the Earl John. ’Nay,’ said Marjorie Kennedy, ’my window was too far from, them, and they spoke low and with privity among themselves.’ Then was my time.