"No, no! don’t go," he pleaded, clinging to the little hand whose cool touch had made his very senses reel, "don’t go ... not just yet.... See how glorious is the moon above those distant hills ... and the mist-laden air which makes your hair glisten with a thousand diamonds, whilst I, poor fool, holding your cool, white hand in mine, stand here gazing on a vision that whispers to me of things which can never, never be.... No! no, don’t go just yet ... let the moon hide her light once more behind the mist ... let the Heath sink into darkness ... let me live in my dream one moment longer ... it will be dispelled all too soon." He had spoken so low, she scarce could hear, but she could feel his hand scorching hers with its fever-heat, and when he ceased speaking she heard a sigh, like a sob, a sigh of bitter longing, of hopeless regret, that made her heart ache with a new pain which was greater, more holy than pity. A strange excitement seemed to pervade him. Madness was in his veins. He longed to seize her, to lift her up on Jack o’ Lantern’s back and gallop away with her over the Moor, far, far out beyond bracken and heather, over those distant Tors, on, on to the mountains of the moon, to the valley of the shadows, she lying passive in his arms, whilst he looked for ever into the clear blue depths of her eyes. Perhaps she too felt this excitement gradually creeping over her; she tried to withdraw her hand, but he would not let it go. To her also there came the sense of unreality, of a vision of dreamland, wherein no one dwelt but she and this one man, where no sound came save that of his voice, rugged and tender, which brought tears of joy and pity to her eyes. In the grass at her feet a cricket began to chirp, and suddenly from a little distance there came the quaint, sweet sound of a shepherd’s pipe, playing an old-time rigadoon. "Hark!" she whispered. The sound came nearer and nearer: she loved to hear the faint, elusive echo, the fairy accompaniment to her own dreamlike mood. "What a sweet tune," she murmured, as instinctively her foot began tapping the measure on the ground. "I mind it well! How oft have I danced to it beneath the Maypole!" "Will you then dance it with me to-night?" "Nay, sir ... you do but jest..." But his excitement was at fever-point now. The outlaw at least could work his will upon this Heath, of which he alone was king. He could not carry her away on Jack o’ Lantern’s back, but he could make her stay with him a while longer, dance with him, here in the moonlight, her hand in his, his arm at times round her waist in the mazes of the dance, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, her breath panting, aye! for she should feel too that reckless fire that scorched him. All the fierce, untamed blood in him ran like molten lava in his veins. Aye! for one more brief half-hour he—the lonely dweller on the Moor—the pariah, the outcast, would taste the joys of the gods.