Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others, when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love should shine upon his lord.
It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder--a place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent many tranced hours.
The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself through the green turf. William Douglas stood beside her pulling a blade of bracken to pieces. The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north, where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge. The girl was speaking slowly and softly.
"Nay, Earl Douglas," she said, "marriage must not be named to Sybilla de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine. He must wed for riches and fair provinces. His house is regal already. He is better born than the King, more powerful also. The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtocé, is not for him."
"A Douglas makes many sacrifices," said the young man with earnestness; "but this is not demanded of him. Four generations of us have wedded for power. It is surely time that one did so for love."
The girl reached him her hand, saying softly: "Ah, William, would that it had been so. Too late I begin to think on those things which might have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate star. As it is I can only go on--a terror to myself and a bane to others."
The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.
"The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I might possess you," he answered.