dizzy round the door opened, and, like some evil
spectre, in stalked Elspie Murray.

Never was there such an uncouth apparition seen in a ball-room. Her grey
petticoat exhibited her bare feet; her short upper gown, that graceful
and picturesque attire of the Scottish peasantry, was thrown carelessly
over her shoulders; her _mutch_ was put on awry, and from under its
immense border her face appeared, as white almost as the cap itself.
She walked right into the centre of the floor, laid her heavy hand on
Sybilla's shoulder, and said,

"Mrs. Rothesay, your husband's come!"

The young wife stood one moment transfixed; she turned pale, afterwards
crimson, and then, uttering a cry of joy, sprang to the door--sprang
into her husband's arms.

Dazzled with the light, the traveller resisted not, while Elspie
half-led, half dragged him--still clasping his wife--into a little room
close by, when she shut the door and left them. Then she burst in once
more among the astonished guests.

"Ye may gang your gate, ye heathens! Awa wi' ye, for Captain Rothesay's
come hame!"

Sybilla and her husband stood face to face in the little gloomy room,
lighted only by a solitary candle. At first she clung about him so
closely that he could not see her face, though he felt her tears
falling, and her little heart beating against his own. He knew it was
all for joy. But he was strangely bewildered by the scene which had
flashed for a minute before his eyes, while standing at the door of the
room.

After a while he drew his wife to the light, and held her out at arm's
length to look at her. Then, for the first time, she remembered all.
Trembling--blushing scarlet, over face and neck--she perceived her
husband's eyes rest on her glittering dress. He regarded her fixedly,
from head to foot. She felt his expression change from joy to uneasy
wonder, from love to sternness, and then he wore a strange, cold look,
such a one as she had never beheld in him before.

"So, the young lady I saw whirling madly in some man's arms--was you,
Sybilla--was _my wife_."

As Captain Rothesay spoke, Sybilla distinguished in his voice a new
tone, echoing the strange coldness in his eyes. She sprang to his neck,
weeping now for grief and alarm, as she had before wept for joy; she
prayed him to forgive her, told him, with a sincerity that none could
doubt, how rejoiced she was at his coming, and how dearly she loved
him--now and ever. He kissed her, at her passio