“‘I will bring him back,’ I assured the man; and rushed from the house, goaded by a frantic suspicion, hurried to a livery stable through the raging storm, secured the carriage after a long argument, and reached Suicide Place soon after the cessation of the storm. You know all that followed. I followed the light in the window, and secreted myself in the shrubbery just in time to witness the entrance of Maury. I heard all that passed between you, clambered over the sill, and collared the wretch just in the nick of time.” “Just in the nick of time!” echoed Floy; and she added, in a murmur, to herself: “Oh, that blessed dream that sent him to save me!” He caught the whisper, and repeated, joyously: “Yes, that blessed dream, for Heaven must have sent it to my pillow, forewarning me in dreams of your peril, that I might hasten to save you. But, Floy--forgive me for calling you that so boldly, but it seems _so_ natural---how strange it seems that you could follow my dream in thoughts as you did. You must possess the gift of mind-reading.” “No,” she answered, hesitatingly, then burst out, solemnly: “Oh, it’s so strange I can hardly tell you, and perhaps you will not believe me, but--I knew all your dream as soon as you began to relate it. For--this is the truth, sir, and not a girlish jest--to-night I fell asleep on the porch of Suicide Place before I came into the house, and dreamed the self-same dream just as you have told it, word for word.” She paused, awed and trembling, overcome by the strange coincidence of her dream. She heard St. George Beresford laugh low and joyously to himself; she felt him crush the hand he held against his throbbing heart, then he whispered, tenderly: “Oh, happy, happy dream that brought us together! Let me interpret it, darling little Floy. It means that we indeed are lovers, that Heaven made us for each other. Do you not believe it?” CHAPTER XI. PLIGHTED. What Floy would have answered to her lover’s ardent question was lost in the rumble and noise of the carriage wheels as the driver reined up his horses in front of Bird’s Nest Cottage, and loudly announced: “Here we are!” Beresford handed Floy out, and walked through the cottage gate up to the door with her, whispering under the leafy shade of the honeysuckle vines a tremulous question: “Will you give me love for love, darling Floy? Will you marry me?” She tried to draw away the hand he held, murmuring, agitatedly: “You--you have no right to talk to me like this. You are engaged to Maybelle.” Her voice broke in a sob, and he put his arm around her, drawing her close to his side, hoping that the shadow of the vines was dense enough to prevent the inquisitive driver from watching their love-making. “I’m _not_ engaged to Maybelle; never _was_, either. What made you think so, my sweet one?” he whispered. “Otho Maury told me so the night before the picnic. He said you were to marry his sister in the fall.”