She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which, plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could see the frowning rampart of the "Giant's Castle" above him, though it was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows, and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," all this loyal panoply of festal colour was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing heaven all at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition, was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this fantastic thought, he said softly-- "Don't go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us--with me--as long as you can!" She turned her head and looked at him, smiling. "Why, what do you mean? I'm not going away anywhere--who told you that I was?" "No one,"--and Angus drew a little nearer to her--"But just now you seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you might float away from me altogether." Here he paused--then added in a lower tone--"And I could not bear to lose you!" She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced,--his own nerves thrilling as he realised that, after all, _if_--if she loved him, he was the master of her fate. "We've been such good friends," he went on, dallying with his own desire to know the best or worst--"Haven't we?" "Indeed, yes!" she answered, somewhat faintly. "And I hope we always will be." "I hope so, too!" he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. "You see I'm rather a clumsy chap with women----" She smiled a little. "Are you?"