wonder at the sight. "Ye daft auld wife!" she said, answering a thought
that was not; and she blushed with the innocent consciousness of a
child. Hastily she did up the massive and shining coils, hastily donned
a wrapper, and with the rushlight in her hand, stole into the hall.
Below stairs she heard the clock ticking the deliberate seconds, and
Frank jingling with the decanters in the dining-room. Aversion rose in
her, bitter and momentary. "Nesty, tippling puggy!" she thought; and
the next moment she had knocked guardedly at Archie's door and was
bidden enter.

Archie had been looking out into the ancient blackness, pierced here and
there with a rayless star; taking the sweet air of the moors and the
night into his bosom deeply; seeking, perhaps finding, peace after the
manner of the unhappy. He turned round as she came in, and showed her a
pale face against the window-frame.

"Is that you, Kirstie?" he asked. "Come in!"

"It's unco late, my dear," said Kirstie, affecting unwillingness.

"No, no," he answered, "not at all. Come in, if you want a crack. I am
not sleepy, God knows!"

She advanced, took a chair by the toilet table and the candle, and set
the rushlight at her foot. Something - it might be in the comparative
disorder of her dress, it might be the emotion that now welled in her
bosom - had touched her with a wand of transformation, and she seemed
young with the youth of goddesses.

"Mr. Erchie," she began, "what's this that's come to ye?"