Between that first meeting and this evening, a year after, when they stood together in Una's garden at Stoneleigh, they had lived through much of Love's first golden record. Their experiences had not always been cloudless. Harold Leighton, it is true, did not actively oppose their marriage; but he had borne himself in a manner that showed, at times, either a singular indifference, or a covert mistrust of the man who was so soon to take from him his brother's only daughter. It might be from jealousy, it might be from a perfectly natural feeling of caution; at any rate, he never discussed their plans with them, he never explained his attitude towards them. Never again did he allude to the schoolmaster, nor account for the strange words he had used on the little island in Derwentwater. For the most part he watched their courtship with a sort of whimsical curiosity, but always withholding his assent from the marriage to which they looked forward. Una was indignant at his final attempt to separate them. His suspicions and David's quixotic manner of meeting them increased her faith in her lover. Never before had she been so perfectly happy as she was this evening with him in the garden's autumnal silence. "It will soon be forever," she whispered. "You are not afraid?" "If it were possible for our love to die, if it were as shortlived as the sunflowers, if some one had the power to take it from us, I would be afraid. Tell me that no one has the power, David." He held her from him for a space, his eyes searching hers. "You alone have the power, Una," he said. From a slowly moving figure amid the bushes behind them came an uncompromising question: "David, you have told her?" The dusky outline, the large quaker hat, the wide-skirted coat catching occasionally among the dry twigs and branches, revealed Harold Leighton. He stood in the center of the pathway, his gray eyes fixed upon them, awaiting an answer. "David has told me," said Una firmly. "You have told her?" he repeated. "I have told her that I love her," he answered. "Is that all?" "I told her that I am unworthy of her." "Why are you unworthy of her?" "You speak as if you knew something against me," said David. Then added fiercely, "Tell it!" With an odd smile on his face the old man looked at Una. "He says he is unworthy of you--you are free," he said. "Una, how do you choose?" She bowed her head before her lover. "David, I love you," she said. The old man turned towards the house. "David, I see your horse is lame; you have ridden him to death," he said drily. "You had better spend the night at Stoneleigh." III A CHAPTER ON GHOSTS A strange thing happened that night at Stoneleigh.