And with a jingle of bells he struck in the "Reel o' Bogie." Elsie did no more than set her lips to her glass. But she obeyed, for Jeremy was in no mood to be countered. Then, taking up her gown daintily on both sides, as the dance ordains, she danced it alone. And every time as she turned, her eyes caught the door of the weaving-room, and the heart within her became as water for what she had seen through that little black mark of exclamation which was the keyhole. Yet somehow the situation stirred her, too. There is a vast deal of desperate courage in a woman. A man laughs at this because he is exempt from the fears of mice and minor creeping things. He may as well think, as he often does, the better of himself, on the strength of the beard on his chin. But in the desperate passes of life, woman is apt to lead the forlorn hopes. And why should she not? Her kind have been accustomed to them ever since, in the forlorn coppices outside Eden, one Eve gave birth to her firstborn, and called him--being, like a woman, deceived--"My possession." And with the blank midnight pressing against the huge windows of the facade, and the white lights and red candle stems reflected a thousand times in the sullen moat, Elsie danced. The irregular wind moaned about the house, and as the brand-new melodeon whined and crew, flinging a weird rhythm to the tremulous candle flames, something like the fast-running "Broom o' the Cowdenkynwes," "Logan Braes," "Green Grows the Rushes," or "Bonnie Dundee," emerged. Elsie danced to them all. She danced as the fluted candles burned down nearer to their sockets. And all the while, now with one leg on the table, and swinging his body to the time of the music, or crouched in a corner nursing his melodeon against him as if he were a beast ready for the spring, Jeremy beat the measure with his foot. Sometimes he would spring up and sing a stave which struck him, in a high, screeching voice--sometimes drain a cup of wine or spirits out of the nearest bottle, stopping in the midst to wave the half-filled glass about his head, and complete his chant. Sometimes it went like this-- "His mother from the window looked, With all the longing of a mother; His little sister, weeping walked The greenwood path to meet her brother. "They sought him east, they sought him west, They sought him a' the forest thorough; They only saw the cloud o' nicht, They only heard the roar of Yarrow!" Then, as the night went past, Elsie prayed for the time to go faster. She saw the candles blink and dwindle; she saw the windows stand out more blankly. In her brain there grew up a fear of the dark, after the light should be extinguished, when she should find herself alone with that wild being who had murdered her grandfather. Her hope was in the morning light. If she could only dance till then!