Lady Kingswood looked dubiously at her, but was too tactful to offer any objection such as the "danger of catching cold" which the ordinary duenna would have suggested, and which would have seemed absurd in the warmth and softness of such a summer night. Besides, if Morgana chose to "wander by the light of the moon" who could prevent her? No one! She stepped off the loggia on to the velvety turf below with an aerial grace more characteristic of flying than walking, and glided along between the tall figures of the Marchese and Don Aloysius like a dream-spirit of the air, and Lady Kingswood, watching her as she descended the garden terraces and gradually disappeared among the trees, was impressed, as she had often been before, by a strange sense of the supernatural,--as if some being wholly unconnected with ordinary mortal happenings were visiting the world by a mere chance. She was a little ashamed of this "uncanny" feeling,--and after a few minutes' hesitation she decided to retire within the house and to her own apartments, rightly judging that Morgana would be better pleased to find her so gone than waiting for her return like a sentinel on guard. She gave a lingering look at the exquisite beauty of the moonlit scene, and thought with a sigh-- "What it would be if one were young once more!" And then she turned, slowly pacing across the loggia and entering the Palazzo, where the gleam of electric lamps within rivalled the moonbeams and drew her out of sight. Meanwhile, Morgana, between her two escorts stepped lightly along, playfully arguing with them both on their silence. "You are so very serious, you good Padre Aloysius!" she said--"And you, Marchese--you who are generally so charming!--to-night you are a very morose companion! You are still in the dumps about my steering the 'White Eagle!'--how cross of you!" "Madama, I think of your safety,"--he said, curtly. "It is kind of you! But if I do not care for my safety?" "I do!" he said, decisively. "And I also!"--said Aloysius, earnestly--"Dear lady, be advised! Think no more of flying in the vast spaces of air alone--alone with an enormous piece of mechanism which might fail at any moment--" "It cannot fail unless the laws of nature fail!"--said Morgana, emphatically--"How strange it is that neither of you seems to realise that the force which moves the 'White Eagle' is natural force alone! However--you are but men!" Here she stopped in her walk, and her brilliant eyes flashed from one to the other--"Men!--with pre-conceived ideas wedged in obstinacy!--yes!--you cannot help yourselves! Even Father Aloysius--" she paused, as she met his grave eyes fixed full upon her.