Surprised, ere long, at Diva's silence, Coralie lifted her eyes, and encountered her friend's intent gaze. Immediately she seemed to become aware that a wonderfully subtle and delicate insight was making, not her face only, but her heart, the subject of its deep regard. The moment before, she did not know that there was anything in either which she cared to hide. Now, as if the existence of some secret were suddenly suggested to her by the fear of another's perception of it, she let her eyes fall, and a deep flush overspread her features. Diva turned away with a sigh. She felt scarcely less lonely than she had seen herself in the vision of the preceding evening, when Coralie had seemed to be passing swiftly beyond her reach and ken, in a chariot of flame. Nor was her sadness wholly for herself. She was gifted with a singular clearness of intuition, in regard to the relations of others; and Coralie's face affected her much as it would have done to find a rose suddenly budding out on a sunny winter's day, and mistaking it for the beginning of summer. Still, as is often the case with persons thus endowed, she did not fully trust her own intuitions, for the reason that they could give no clear account of themselves to her intellect. She now told herself, therefore, that her impressions were doubtless wrong, inasmuch as they were destitute of solid basis; she was even glad to believe so, quickly losing the thought of herself in that of her friend. Or it might be that she was seized with a diviner selfishness,--the certainty that, if any winter's night of frost and dusk were in store for Coralie, she herself must needs partake largely, through sympathy, of its chill and gloom. As the friends stood thus silent, each busy with her own impressions (for they were of much too thin a consistency to be called thoughts), certain sounds from below, coming up to the window, attracted their notice. A horse was brought round to the side door, and, soon after, Bergan's voice was distinctly heard, speaking to Mr. Youle. "That will do, thank you. I shall quite enjoy my ride through the valley, this lovely morning. Present my adieux to Miss Coralie; I trust that her night's rest has obliterated every trace of her last evening's experience. Good-bye." "Why, that is Mr. Arling!" exclaimed Coralie, in sudden consternation. "What can have happened to take him away so suddenly?" "I heard him telling your father, last night," answered Diva, calmly, "that he would be forced to return to town early this morning on business of importance." "And he did not bid me good-bye!" murmured Coralie, discontentedly. "Besides, I have not half thanked him for saving me from those dreadful flames,"--and she shuddered at the recollection. "Oh, I _must_ speak to him, before he goes."