Why need they have spoken? It needed but that his hand should seek and hold hers in that lingering clasp that tells the all and all of love. But the soft breeze went sighing past like a spirit, the eternal sea surged strangely on, the stars burned, and the moon went under a transient cloud, while far away in the southern heavens a great red _meteor_ flamed out and shone brilliantly among the silver stars. Both saw it at once, and both uttered an affected cry of surprise--affected, I say, because I do not think anything would have surprised them then, they were so absorbed in each other, so happy and yet so unhappy, as they stood together there, their young hearts throbbing "so near and yet so far." She did not dream as she watched that fiery orb of light that her future hung on its transient beaming. She knew, with a woman's keen intuition, that he had brought her there to learn her fate. What it was to be she could not guess. Certainly she did not think that the man beside her had staked their two futures on the hazard of a meteor, and that when it paled and faded from the stormy sky he whispered to himself: "As was my love for her! Burning and comet-like as was that meteor, it shall fade as soon and leave me free." Was it? Did the future prove so? Tenderly--more tenderly than he had ever done--he lifted the thin white drapery, half falling from her shoulders, and folded it closely about her. "How heavily the dew falls," he said, kindly. "We had better return to the house." Mrs. Conway looked curiously up as the pair came slowly into the drawing-room, and was content with what her keen glance read in the faces that wore the light mask of indifferent smiles. "Gracie, child," in her most affable way, "don't let our guest leave us without the rare treat of hearing you sing. Captain Clendenon, will you turn the music for her?" "The attraction of Grace's music, its greatest charm, lies in its wonderful pathos and expressiveness," condescended the haughty hostess, as the guest's firm lip softened while listening to the spirit-like melodies that sobbed and wailed along the piano keys, answering to the touch of the skillful fingers and the sweet voice. At length she selected an old song, and with a single glance at Conway, sang the first stanza through: "Sweetheart, good-by! the fluttering sail Is set to bear me far from thee; And soon before the favoring gale My ship shall bound upon the sea. Perchance, all desolate and forlorn, These eyes shall miss thee many a year; But unforgotten every charm, Though lost to sight to mem'ry dear!" The wounded young heart could sustain itself no longer. She rose and passed hastily from the room. It was her farewell to her unworthy lover. When he left home in the early dawn, amid the tearful lamentations of his adoring aunt, Miss Grey had not arisen from her feverish slumbers. CHAPTER II. TOO LATE.