"The devil is mighty eager for a dance, else my old eyes have been making a fool of me."
Leaving the door wide open, he returned to the fireplace. He waited a while, but did not see the face in the fire.
With a glad shout he suddenly ran to the door, and slammed it shut.
"I'm free, free!" he cried, clapping his hands gleefully.
Hanging his coat and hat on their pegs, he sat down before the fire, and congratulated himself on his liberty. But his cheerful mood did not last long. Soon he began to shiver, and in the fire beheld the devil return.
"Oh, Lord! he is back. I am still his slave. He has not removed the violin-mask. Yes, yes, I go to my child."
Bareheaded he plunged into the cold, which he did not mind, and the darkness, which he did not heed, for his way was marked by the light of the Three-Sister furnaces, reflected by the clouds.
Lizzī was at the window, listening to the gunshots—the farewell volleys to the old year, the welcoming salute to the new—when a cold, nervous hand was laid on her shoulder. She had not heard the door open, but as it was like any one of the boys to steal up behind her and say something humorous in her ear she sat still, and continued to watch for the flashes of the guns.
"Lizzī, what has happened to my fiddle?"
Recognizing Bill Kellar's voice, harsh as it was, she caught his hand in a hard grip and turned, not knowing whether she would face a lunatic or a drunken man, but afraid of neither.