"I don't know. I don't know of anybody else. Maybe no outer thing has anything to do with it. Sometimes we just have drumlie, dreary seasons and we do not know why.... She loves the spring. Maybe when spring comes she'll be Elspeth once more!"
"I hope so," said Greenlaw. "Spring makes all the world bonny again."
That was in November. On Christmas Eve Elspeth Barrow drowned herself in the Kelpie's Pool.
CHAPTER XVII
There had been three hours of light on Christmas Day when Robin Greenlaw appeared at Glenfernie House and would see the laird.
"He's in his ain room in the keep," said Davie, and went with the message.
Alexander came down the stair and out into the flagged court. The weather had been unwontedly clement, melting the earlier snows, letting the brown earth forth again for one look about her. To-day there was pale sunlight. Greenlaw sat his big gray. The laird came to him.
"Get down, man, and come in for Christmas cheer!"