’Your father,’ answered Bargany, ’is a good man—too good for such a crew. He has married one daughter to the young Sheriff of Galloway. Wherefore not another to his cousin of Bargany? Is not Kennedy of Bargany, even though he be an enemy, better than any noltish Galloway laird?’ ’Ah,’ said Marjorie Kennedy, softly, ’but there is another reason—’ ’Tell it me and I will answer it,’ said Bargany, with a swift fierceness, for I think he imagined that he was making head against her scruples. But I had heard her speak in that still way before, and could have told him different. ’Isobel Stewart, bower-maiden to the Queen, and the Earldom of Carrick—they are surely reasons enough!’ said Marjorie Kennedy. Bargany started as though an adder had stung him. For a moment he seemed bereft of speech. ’Who has been lying to you of me?’ he said, almost under his breath, as though the night air had suddenly made him hoarse. ’Nay, think again,’ said Marjorie; ’is it not true? Better a soiled bower-maiden of the King’s court and an earldom with her, than poor Marjorie Kennedy of Culzean in her smock!’ I never heard her say a spiteful thing before nor since—but when it comes to the matter of the Other Woman, all women are alike. Bargany stamped his foot in very anger. ’A fig for dignities, and a rotten fig for Isobel Stewart,’ he cried. ’I love but you, Marjorie Kennedy! Will you come to me, so that you and I may face the world together? For it is a black world and needs two hearts that can stand by each other.’ Then betwixt me and the sea (as I have said) I saw Marjorie knitting and clasping her hands as if her spirit were wrestling within her. ’Yea, Gilbert,’ she said, very gently at last, ’it is as you say, a black, black world. But neither you nor I are going to better it by the breaking of trysts and engagements!’ ’And what tryst have you?’ he demanded sullenly. ’I am trysted to sorrow,’ she answered, ’trysted for ever to want that which most I desire, and to have that which most I hate. Gilbert Kennedy, take my hand this once and hearken. You and I are too greatly like one another to be happy together. We are not mates born for smooth things. Sorrow is our dower and suffering our weird, and the pity of it is that we must dree it apart. I think we are both "fey" to-night,’ she said, breaking off with a change of tone. ’We had best go within.’ ’Within?’ said Bargany, scornfully, for he bethought him that he could never enter the house of Culzean as a friend. ’Now, Gilbert,’ said Marjorie, ’be a man and forgive. Be a man also to Isobel Stewart, that she may know you a truer man than she has ever met in King’s courts—ay, truer and nobler, as I think you, than the King himself. And let me go my way....’ She covered her face with her hands and stood a space silent and bowed. ’Let me go my way!’ she said again. And so would have gone from him.