Agnes in her mild reasoning was no match for this fiery spirit. She could only cry helplessly standing like a ghost among the shadows, but the early moon came in at the window and shone full upon Kirsteen, who was neither ghost nor shadow. The aspect of command that was in her daunted the other. “I will go and ask my mother,” she said. “Tell her,” said Kirsteen, “that I have come straight from London, travelling night and day. I have scarce tasted bite or sup, nor slept in my bed since the news came. I knew it was him without any name, for I knew that was what he would do. She has many, many a thing to mind her of him, the house he was born in, and his picture and all, and his dear name. And I have nothing but that. And I will have it, for it belongs to me!” “I will go and ask my mother,” Agnes said. The moon shone in through the small window, throwing upon Kirsteen’s figure the reflection of the solid wooden frame-work, so that she looked as if she were in a prison looking out upon the outside world through black iron bars. She stood quite still for some time with her white face turned to it looking through those bars to the light. And she never forgot that moment when she stood gazing up into the white orb in the clear summer sky which had looked down upon him lying silent upon the field. It seemed to Kirsteen in the fever of her weariness and exhaustion that she could see that scene, the awful silence, the other dead lying about in dark muffled heaps, and the moon shining upon the handkerchief in his hands. There were faint sounds in the house of doors opening and shutting, and of voices. A sudden cry--which perhaps was from his mother. It would be natural that his mother should resist, that she should wish to keep it. But Kirsteen felt that nothing could stand against herself and her right. In a few minutes Agnes came back, still crying. “I am sorry,” she said, “to keep you in this dark room, but I’ve told them to bring the candles!” “The candles are not needed, there’s nothing needed but one thing.” “Oh, Kirsteen,” said Agnes, “be content with something less than that. My mother says she cannot--oh, she cannot!--give that up.” “Did ye tell her it was mine, and I’ve come to get my own?” “Oh, Kirsteen! her heart’s broken!” “And what is mine? She will get away to him. She will go where he is. But I’m young and we are all dour livers, that will not die--I’ll live--maybe a hundred years,” cried Kirsteen with a hard sob and a wave of her hand as if in demonstration of the hardness of her fate. Here a maid entered the room bearing two lighted candles which shone upon a rosy tranquil face, the common unconcerned life coming in upon the exaltation of the other. She closed the other windows one by one as if that had been the only thing to do, but, when she approached that at which Kirsteen stood with the bars of shadow upon her, drew back with a frightened look and went away.