"Though," she added, laughingly, "I do not suppose it would be as safe to wear all my diamonds on the beach as it would be if we just promenaded the piazza." "It would be a thousand times more romantic," he whispered, his glance thrilling her through and through, his hand tightening over the little one resting on his arm. And so, as the moth follows the flickering, dancing flame, foolish Sally Gardiner, without a thought of danger, took the arm of the handsome stranger whom she had known but a few short weeks, and sauntered out upon the beach with him. There were hundreds of promenaders, and no one noticed them particularly. On and on they walked, Lamont whispering soft, sweet nothings into her foolish ears, until they had left most of the throng far behind them. "Hack, sir!--hack to ride up and down the beach!" exclaimed a man, stopping a pair of mettlesome horses almost directly in front of them. Victor Lamont appeared to hesitate an instant; but in that instant he and the driver had exchanged meaning glances. "Shall we not ride up and down, instead of walking?" suggested Lamont, eagerly. "I--I have something to tell you, and I may never have such an opportunity again. We can ride down as far as the light-house on the point, and back. Do not refuse me so slight a favor, I beg of you." If she had stopped to consider, even for one instant, she would have declined the invitation; but, almost before she had decided whether she should say yes or no, Victor Lamont had lifted her in his strong arms, placed her in the cab, and sprung in after her. Pretty, jolly Sally Gardiner looked a trifle embarrassed. "Oh, how imprudent, Mr. Lamont!" she cried, clinging to his arm, as the full consciousness of the situation seemed to occur to her. "We had better get out, and walk back to the Ocean House." But it was too late for objections. The driver had already whipped up his horses, and instead of creeping wearily along, after the fashion of tired hack horses, they flew down the beach like the wind. "Oh, Mrs. Gardiner--Sally!" cried Victor Lamont, in a voice apparently husky with emotion, "the memory of this ride will be with me while life lasts!" Victor Lamont's voice died away in a hoarse whisper; the hand which caught and held her own closed tighter over it, and the hoarse murmur of the sea seemed further and further away. Sally Gardiner seemed only conscious of one thing--that Victor Lamont loved her. CHAPTER XXXVII. For a moment the words falling so passionately from the lips of the handsome man sitting beside her, the spell of the moonlight, and the murmur of the waves, seemed to lock her senses in a delicious dream. But the dream lasted only a moment. In the next, she had recovered herself. "Oh, Mr. Lamont, we must--we must get right out and walk back to the hotel! What if any one should see us riding together? Jay would be sure to hear of it, and there would be trouble in store for both of us."