She nodded to him and leaned a little farther over, holding tightly to the baluster meanwhile.
"Well," said Sholto, roughly, "what are my lord's commands for me, if, indeed, he has charged you with any ?" "He bids me say," replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night--that is, if so menial a service shame not your knighthood." "Pshaw!" muttered Sholto, "my lord said naught of the sort." "Well then," said Maud Lindesay, smiling down upon him with an expression innocent and sweet as that of an angel on a painted ceiling, "you will be kind and come and help us all the same ?" "That I will not!" said Sholto, stamping his foot like an ill-tempered boy.
"Yes, you will--because Margaret asks you ?" _"I will not!"_ "Then because _I_ ask you ?" Spite of his best endeavours, Sholto could not take his eyes from the girl's face, which seemed fairer and more desirable to him now than ever.

A quick sob of passion shook him, and he found words at last: "Oh, Maud Lindesay, why do you treat thus one who loves you with all his heart ?" The girl's face changed.

The mischief died out of it, and something vague and soft welled up in her eyes, making them mistily grey and lustrous.

But she only said: "Sholto, it is growing dark already! It is time the tapers were trimmed!" Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know, there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk, when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars were coming out..