for you our gaiety must have been turned into
mourning. A shadow will be upon our mirth
if our benefactor disdains to join in it."

With a sweet grace, mingled with a certain
hauteur from which she was never free,
she extended her white hand to the tall looming
figure outside the window; to have it grasped
and wrung in a way that made the proud girl's
eyes flash their amazement, and the same little
hand clench itself in displeasure, when it had
hid itself like an outraged thing among the
shining folds of her gown. Was this Coll Dhu
mad, or rude?

The guest no longer refused to enter, but
followed the white figure into a little study
where a lamp burned; and the gloomy stranger,
the bluff colonel, and the young mistress of the
house, were fully discovered to each other's
eyes. Evleen glanced at the new comer's dark
face, and shuddered with a feeling of indescribable
dread and dislike; then, to her father,
accounted for the shudder after a popular
fashion, saying lightly: "There is some one
walking over my grave."

So Coll Dhu was present at Evleen Blake's
birthday ball. Here he was, under a roof
which ought to have been his own, a stranger,
known only by a nickname, shunned and solitary.
Here he was, who had lived among the
eagles and foxes, lying in wait with a fell purpose,
to be revenged on the son of his father's foe
for poverty and disgrace, for the broken heart
of a dead mother, for the loss of a self-slaughtered
father, for the dreary scattering of brothers and
sisters. Here he stood, a Samson shorn of his
strength; and all because a haughty girl had
melting eyes, a winning mouth, and looked
radiant in satin and roses.

Peerless where many were lovely, she moved
among her friends, trying to be unconscious
of the gloomy fire of those strange eyes which
followed her unweariedly wherever she went.
And when her father begged her to be gracious
to the unsocial guest whom he would fain
conciliate, she courteously conducted him to see
the new picture-gallery adjoining the drawing-rooms;
explained under what odd circumstances
the colonel had picked up this little painting or
that; using every delicate art her pride would
allow to achieve her father's purpose, whilst
maintaining at the same time her own personal
reserve; trying to divert the guest's oppressive
attention from herself to the objects
for which she claimed his notice. Coll Dhu
followed his conductress and listened to her
voice, but what she said mattered nothing; nor
did she wring many words of comment or reply
from his lips, until they paused in a retired corner
where the light was dim, before a window from
which the curtain was withdrawn. The sashes
were open, and nothing was visible but water;
the night Atlantic, with the full moon riding high
above a bank of clouds, making silvery tracks
outward towards the distance of infinite mystery
dividing two worlds. Here the following little
scene is said to have been enacted.

"This window of my father's own planning,
is it not creditable to his taste?" said the young
hostess, as she stood, herself glittering like a
dream of beauty, looking on the moonlight.

Coll Dhu made no answer; but suddenly, it
is said, asked her for a rose from a cluster of
flowers that nestled in the lace on her bosom.

For the second time that night Evleen Blake's
eyes flashed with no gentle light. But this man
was the saviour of her father. She broke off a
blossom, and with such good grace, and also
with such queen-like dignity as she might
assume, presented it to him. Whereupon,
not only was the rose seized, but also the hand
that gave it, which was hastily covered with
kisses.

Then her anger burst upon him.

"Sir," she cried, "if you are a gentleman
you must be mad! If you are not mad, then
you are not a gentleman!"

"Be merciful," said Coll Dhu; "I love you.
My God, I never loved a woman before! Ah!"
he cried, as a look of disgust crept over her
face, "you hate me. You shuddered the first
time your eyes met mine. I love you, and you
hate me!"

"I do," cried Evleen, vehemently, forgetting
everything but her indignation. "Your presence
is like something evil to me. Love me?—your
looks poison me. Pray, sir, talk no more to me
in this strain."

"I will trouble you no longer," said Coll Dhu.
And, stalking to the window, he placed one
powerful hand upon the sash, and vaulted from
it out of her sight.

Bare-headed as he was, Coll Dhu strode off
to the mountains, but not towards his own
home. All the remaining dark hours of that
night he is believed to have walked the labyrinths
of the hills, until dawn began to scatter the clouds
with a high wind. Fasting, and on foot from sunrise
the morning before, he was then glad enough
to see a cabin right in his way. Walking in, he
asked for water to drink, and a corner where
he might throw himself to rest.

There was a wake in the house, and the
kitchen was full of people, all wearied out with
the night's watch; old men were dozing over
their pipes in the chimney-corner, and here and
there a woman was fast asleep with her head on a
neighbour's knee. All who were awake crossed
themselves when Coll Dhu's figure darkened the
door, because of his evil name; but an old man
of the house invited him in, and offering him
milk, and promising him a roasted potato
by-and-by, conducted him to a small room off the
kitchen, one end of which was strewed with
heather, and where there were only two women
sitting gossiping over a fire.

"A thraveller," said the old man, nodding
his head at the women, who nodded back, as if
to say "he has the traveller's right." And
Coll Dhu flung himself on the heather, in the
furthest corner of the narrow room.

The women suspended their talk for a while;
but presently, guessing the intruder to be
asleep, resumed it in voices above a whisper.