As she ended speaking, she turned to the door, and drew from it a key, evidently after a foiled attempt to unlock it therewith; for from a bunch she carried she now made choice of another, and was already fumbling with it in the key-hole, when Malcolm bethought himself that, whatever her further intent, he ought not to allow her to succeed in opening the door. He therefore rose slowly to his feet, and stepping softly out into the passage, sent his round blue bonnet spinning with such a certain aim, that it flew right against her head. She gave a cry of terror, smothered by the sense of evil secrecy, and dropped her lantern. It went out. Malcolm pattered with his hands on the floor, and began to howl frightfully. Her companion had already fled, and Mrs Catanach picked up her lantern and followed. But her flight was soft-footed, and gave sign only in the sound of her garments, and a clank or two of her keys. Gifted with a good sense of relative position, Malcolm was able to find his way back to the hall without much difficulty, and met no one on the way. When he stepped into the open air, a round moon was visible through the trees, and their shadows were lying across the sward. The merriment had grown louder; for a good deal of whisky having been drunk by men of all classes, hilarity had ousted restraint, and the separation of classes having broken a little, there were many stragglers from the higher to the lower divisions, whence the area of the more boisterous fun had considerably widened. Most of the ladies and gentlemen were dancing in the chequer of the trees and moonlight, but, a little removed from the rest, Lady Florimel was seated under a tree, with Lord Meikleham by her side, probably her partner in the last dance. She was looking at the moon, which shone upon her from between two low branches, and there was a sparkle in her eyes and a luminousness upon her cheek which to Malcolm did not seem to come from the moon only. He passed on, with the first pang of jealousy in his heart, feeling now for the first time that the space between Lady Florimel and himself was indeed a gulf. But he cast the whole thing from him for the time with an inward scorn of his foolishness, and hurried on from group to group, to find the marquis.