The day was wonderfully bright and beautiful for the season; streaming through the giant beeches the rays of the sunshine quivered on the green grass and brown fern; there was a hum of insect life still, and the twitter of sparrows, while an occasional rabbit shot to and fro. The time passed slowly, till Alison thought she could hear the beating of her heart; for it seemed as if she and the rabbits, the sparrows and the insects, were to have all the glade to themselves; when suddenly she heard the gallop of a horse, and in another moment Bevil Goring had sprung from his saddle and taken her hand. 'My darling, my darling, I knew you would come,' he exclaimed, with tenderness in his tone and passion in his eyes, 'may I call you Alison now?' She did not reply audibly, but the quick rose-leaf tint--one of her greatest beauties--swept over her soft cheek and delicate neck, rising even to her little ears while he repeated-- 'May I call you Alison now--my own Alison--when I tell you that I love you?' He kissed her tenderly on the forehead, the eyes, and lips again and again; and, then suddenly drawing a little way from him, she covered her face with her white hands and began to sob heavily. 'You love me, don't you?' he asked, imploringly. 'Yes, Bevil,' she replied, in a broken voice; and he, transported to hear his Christian name for the first time on her lips, pressed her to his breast, while she submitted unresistingly, but added, 'I must come here no more now--no more!' 'Why, my love?' 'It is wrong to papa.' 'Surely you will see me again, darling--surely you will not accept my love and give me up at the same moment? I shall speak to Sir Ranald, if you will permit me.' 'Useless--useless; you would but precipitate my fate.' 'Your fate--what is that?' 'I don't know--I don't know,' moaned the girl, in sore bewilderment, while the thin aristocratic face of her father, with his keen, blue, inquiring eyes, gold _pince-nez_ and all, seemed to rise before her. 'I am not rich I know, Alison darling.' 'And I have been used to the want of riches nearly all my life, and now--now--I must go.' 'Already! You will be here to-morrow?' 'Oh, no; not to-morrow.' 'When?' 'I cannot, dare not say.' 'You are cruel to me, Alison,' he exclaimed, and with one long, clinging kiss they separated--she to run down the wooded pathway like a hunted hare, and he to ride slowly off in the opposite direction. He came to that trysting-place the next day, however, and the next too, but no Alison was there, and he could only surmise wildly, and perhaps wide of the truth, what detained her. Had she been watched? Had their meetings been overseen, overheard?