"You say that Lady Vaughan intends starting for Bergheim on Thursday, and that Adrian Darcy is to meet you there; consequently, after Thursday, you have not the least chance of escape. I should imagine the future that lies before you to be more terrible even than the past. Rely upon it, Adrian Darcy will come to live at the Chase if he marries you; and then you will only sleep through life. You will never know its possibilities, its grand realities." An expression of terror came over her face. "Claude," she cried, "I would rather die than live as I have been living!" "So would I, in your place. Cynthy, your life is in our own hands. If you choose to be foolish and frightened, you will say good-by to me, go to Bergheim, marry Darcy, and drag out the rest of a weary life at the Chase, seeing nothing of brightness, nothing of beauty, and growing in time as stiff and formal as Lady Vaughan is now." The girl shuddered; the warm young life in her rebelled; the longing for love and pleasure, for life and brightness, was suddenly chilled. "Now here is another picture for you," resumed Claude. "Do what I wish, and you shall never have another hour's dulness or weariness while you live. Your life shall be all love, warmth, fragrance and song." "What do you wish?" she asked, her lovely young face growing brighter at each word. "I want you to meet me to-morrow night at Oakton station; we will take the train for London, and on Thursday, instead of going to Bergheim, we will be married, and then you shall lead an enchanted life." An expression of doubt appeared on her face; but she was very young and easy to persuade. "It will be the grandest sensation in all the world," he said. "Imagine an elopement from the Chase--where the goddess of dulness has reigned for years--an elopement, Cynthy, followed by a marriage, a grand reconciliation tableau, and happiness that will last for life afterward." She repeated the words half-doubtfully. "An elopement, Claude--would not that be very wrong--wicked almost?" "Not at all. Lady Helmsdale eloped with her husband, and they are the happiest people in the world; elopements are not so uncommon--they are full of romance, Cynthia." "But are they right?" she asked, half timidly. "Well in some cases an elopement is not right, perhaps; in ours it is. Do you think that, hoping as I do to make you my wife, I would ask you to do anything which would afterward be injurious to you? Though you are so young, Cynthia, you must know better than that. To elope is right enough in our case. You are like a captive princess; I am the knight come to deliver you from the dreariest of prisons--come to open for you the gates of an enchanted land. It will be just like a romance, Cynthy; only instead of reading, we shall act it." And then in his rich cheery-voice, he sung, "'But neither bolts nor bars shall keep My own true love from me.'"