Tales were not wanting of the men of Stair who had lost their wits when crossed in love; who had run away with other men's wives and had abided with some jauntiness the world's dispraise, cleaving until death did them part to the one woman who seemed God-made for them. I had thought before this, in a slighting manner, of the strange doings of my forebears; but the thing was upon me, and, come life, come death, I knew that there was henceforward for me but one woman in the world, Marian Ingarrach, an Irish gipsy-girl, with a beauty beyond the natural, and a voice of music like the sounding of an old harp. I stood under the great tree, the blood of a man and a lover pulsing sweet and feverishly through my veins, when I saw her come out on the balcony, over the sea door, where some posies grew, which she had come to move back from the wind. I was not one to lose an opportunity like this, for nature in me was strong and impulse-driven. I crossed the space which divided us and spoke up to her. "Will you come down?" I called to her; "I have that which I would say to you to-night." She started at the sound of my voice, hesitated for a moment, and with no answer in words disappeared from the porch, coming out of the door near which I stood. Her hair, in two long plaits, hung almost to her knees, and by the moonlight I could see the flush of her cheek and the silver sheen of her eyes as she looked up at me with questioning in her glance, and I remember now the clutch at my throat which seemed to hold back all I would say, as I took off my cap and stood before her. "I love you," I said headily, "I love you, and I want you for my wife," and, seeing the highness of the absurdity that my first words to her should be a proposal of marriage, I cried, "Oh, my dear! my dear! ye'll think me daft to talk thus; but we men of Stair go gyte in these affairs. 'Tis love at first sight with us, or none at all; but if ye'll have me, I'll make ye Lady Stair; and what's far more, I'll try to make you a happy woman the rest of your days. "It seems wild enough for me to be talking so," I went on, "to you, who do not even know my name," and here she interrupted me with a shy smile. "Jock!" she said, reaching forth her hand, and the door of heaven opened, as it seemed. "How did you know?" I asked. "Sure," she said, "I listened for it. The other big man called you that." "You cared to know?" I whispered, for my arm was around her by this time, and the world had slipped away. "Very much." "And you think you could learn to love me, Marian?" I felt the little body quiver in my arms, and when she spoke there was fear in her voice. "Do you think it is right?" she asked. "Do you think it can be right? It seems as though for years, for all my life, I had waited for your coming, and I loved you the minute I saw you--you whom a few hours agone I did not know to be a living man. Tell me," she went on excitedly, "you who are a man and of the world, can this be all good?"