Her partner laughs and hurries her on, leaving the anxious old husband standing in the floor like one dazed. A dozen people standing around have heard the question and its answer. They nod and wink at each other, for Colonel Carlyle's patent jealousy has begun to make him a laughing stock. After a moment he recollects himself and turns away. People wonder if he will go out and confront the sentimental pair, and a few couples, on curiosity bent, stroll out to watch his proceedings. They are rewarded directly, for he comes out and takes his way down the shore. Felise's assertion of a half an hour is merely a pleasant fiction. It has not been ten minutes since she left the house on the arm of the young poet. They are standing on the beach looking out at the glorious sea, and the young man whose soul is so deeply imbued with poetry that he can think and speak of nothing else, has been telling her what a sweet poem is "Lucille," Owen Meredith's latest. He repeats a few lines, and the girl inclines her head and tries to be attentive. "O, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone, My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never, Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever, We have met, we have parted, no more is recorded In my annals on earth." The pretty lines have a more attentive listener than Bonnibel. Her husband has come up softly and unnoticed. He sees the graceful head graciously inclined, hears the lines that Byron Penn has, unconsciously to himself, made the vehicle for expressing his own sentiments, and his heart quakes with fury. He strides before them, white and stern. "Mrs. Carlyle," he says, in low, stern accents, "will you come with me?" The young wife lifts her drooping head with a start and sees him standing before her, wan, white and haggard, quite a different man from the enraptured lover who had kissed and praised her but a little while ago. "I--oh, dear me--has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle? Are you ill?" she falters, in her innocent unconsciousness. "Will you come with me?" he repeats, grinding his teeth in a fury. "Certainly," she says, thinking that something dreadful must have happened surely, and simply saying, "You will excuse me, Mr. Penn," she bows and turns away on her husband's arm. The handsome young fellow looks after them blankly. "Upon my word," he exclaims, "what a furious, uncalled-for outbreak of jealousy! So that's what it is to be an old man's darling, is it? Truly an enviable position for such a peerless angel." He throws himself down on the beach, to the detriment of his immaculate evening costume, and resigns himself to some rather melancholy musings. Meanwhile Bonnibel, as she walks away, again asks, with sweet unconsciousness: "_Has_ anything happened, Colonel Carlyle?" "Let us go to your private parlor; I will tell you there," he answers, coldly.