There remained only the huge centre one, a special purchase of Aphra's. And still the madman grimaced, crossing and uncrossing his legs on the high mantel-piece. Still he swung his instrument--still he called on Elsie to dance. But now the girl was utterly fatigued. Without a sign of giving way, something seemed to crack somewhere--in her head, perhaps, or about her heart. She sank unconscious on the floor in a heap. Mad Jeremy halted in the middle of a bar; bent forward to look at the girl to see whether or no she was pretending. Then, leaping down from the mantel-shelf with the same graceful ease as he had mounted, he strode to the last great red candle, fit for a cathedral altar, which Aphra had set in the central candelabra. He took it down, and, after one keen look at the girl, he stepped over her prostrate body, on his way to resume his beloved melodeon, which he had left behind him when he had leaped down. A smile of infinite cunning wreathed his lips. "Baith the twa," he muttered, the smile widening to a grin. "She's a bonnie lassie, ay! and if Jeremy had ony thocht o' marryin' she wad be the lass for him. But it's safer no! Baith the twa will be best dead. That will mak' the last of the Stennises gang tegither. She shall have a braw burial. There shall never be sic a Baalfire as Jeremy will licht for her--and weel she is deservin' o't. For she danced blithe and brawly, even unto the breakin' o' the day!" And he went on tiptoe to the door of the weaving room, unlocked it, and looked in, holding his flambeau high above his head. The light fell on the dead man, bent forward with his face half hidden in the web. He held his head first to one side and then to the other, as an artist may, with pleasure and self-complaisance, admire a completed masterpiece. Then he went out. Elsie still lay where she had fallen. The madman glanced once at her. "It will e'en be the quicker. I will let her lie. She will never wauken. Leave the door open, Jeremy. It will mak' a graund draught. Fare ye weel, bairn! Ye danced bonnie, and kind Jeremy is giein' ye your wages this nicht! The best o' a'--an easy way o' goin'!" He took the candle in his left hand, and with the melodeon still in his right he went down to the chamber beneath. Here he filled his pockets with bank-notes in rolls, little sacks of gold, and clinking bags from a great safe which stood wide open--the bundle of keys which had belonged to its dead owner still in the lock. The Golden Farmer was plundered of his store. Then, flinging all the inflammable stuff, furniture, and hangings in a heap in the centre, he drenched the pile with kerosene from a can he brought from the storehouse, throwing on shavings from his master's workshop, kindling-wood from the kitchen, and, indeed, all combustibles he could lay hands upon.