'There is nothing to tell,' replied Alison, feeling the while terribly conscious that there was far too much if inferences were to be drawn; but she shrank from giving pain to her lover by relating her father's desires and bluntly-expressed wishes, though she feared that Bevil was quite sharp enough to suspect more than he or she admitted, else whence his questions. And now, lover-like, their conversation, interesting only to themselves, drifted rapidly into the never-ending topic of their own passionate regard for each other, their future hopes, and certainly most vague plans, while dusk was closing round them--the soft semi-darkness of an autumnal night; yet it was full of distant sounds, and not a few sweet scents that mingled with the heavy odour of the fallen leaves. Alison had tied a little laced handkerchief over her hair, and her eyes were beaming upward, sweetly and coquettishly, as they met the glances of her lover, who thought she looked like the sweetest picture ever painted, especially when her long lashes rested on the paleness of her cheek when she cast them down. 'May I see you home when the time comes?' he asked. 'Not for worlds, Bevil darling.' 'It is so dark.' 'But Daisy Prune is to call for me, and we know all the roads and lanes hereabout as well as if we had made them.' They were very, very happy just then, these two--happy in the security of each other's love, and could little foresee the turmoil and misery a little time was to bring forth for both. By the light of a softly-shaded lamp the other pair were _tête-à-tête_ in the drawing-room, maintaining a curious and disjointed conversation, as if some unuttered or unutterable secret loaded the tongue of each; and, truth to tell, the officer, who had led his men to the storming of more than one hill-fort on the vast slopes of the Hindoo Koosh--who had been wont to pot his tiger and stick his furious pig in the jungle--who had been all over India, from the Sand Heads of the Hooghly to the gates of Cabul--if he had now come on a love-making errand, was the less self-possessed of the two. Mrs. Trelawney possessed the rare art of dressing in such dainty perfection as never woman did before, he thought; and all her toilettes seemed to harmonise so much with the time and place in which he saw them, and with his own taste. As they conversed on indifferent subjects, a strange and subtle magnetism drew their eyes to meet from time to time in a manner that expressed or admitted much, and yet no particular word of regard--still less of love--escaped Dalton; but little Netty by her remarks sometimes made both feel very awkward, and wish that she was relegated to the region of the nursery.