up at the top of the
wall and stopped. Alec looked at her. Her face was as full of light as
a diamond in the sun. He forgot all his jealousy. The fresh tide of his
love swept it away, or at least covered it. On the top of the wall, in
the sun, grew one wild scarlet poppy, a delicate transparent glory,
through which the sunlight shone, staining itself red, and almost
dissolving the poppy.

The red light melted away the mist between them, and they walked in it
up to the ruined walls. Long grass grew about them, close to the very
door, which was locked, that if old Time could not be kept out, younger
destroyers might. Other walls stood around, vitrified by fire--the
remnants of an older castle still, about which Jamblichus might have
spied the lingering phantoms of many a terrible deed.

They entered by the door in the great tower, under the spiky remnants
of the spiral stair projecting from the huge circular wall. To the
right, a steep descent, once a stair, led down to the cellars and the
dungeon; a terrible place, the visible negations of which are horrid,
and need no popular legends such as Alec had been telling Kate, of a
walled-up door and a lost room, to add to their influence. It was no
wonder that when he held out his hand to lead her down into the
darkness and through winding ways to the mouth of the far-off beehive
dungeon--it was no wonder, I say, that she should shrink and draw back.
A few rays came through the decayed planks of the door which Alec had
pushed to behind them, and fell upon the rubbish of centuries sloping
in the brown light and damp air down into the abyss. One larger ray
from the keyhole fell upon Kate's face, and showed it blanched with
fear, and her eyes distended with the effort to see through the gloom.

At that moment, a sweet, low voice came from somewhere, out of the
darkness, saying:

"Dinna be feared, mem, to gang whaur Alec wants ye to gang. Ye can
lippen (trust) to _him_."

Staring in the direction of the sound, Kate saw the pale face of a
slender--half child, half maiden, glimmering across the gulf that led
to the dungeon. She stood in the midst of a sepulchral light, whose
faintness differed from mere obscuration, inasmuch as it told how
bright it was out of doors in the sun. Annie, I say, stood in this
dimness--a dusky and yet radiant creature, seeming to throw off from
her a faint brown light--a lovely, earth-stained ghost.

"Oh! Annie, is that you?" said Alec.

"Ay is