So absorbed was she in contemplation that she did not detect the faint scent of cigar smoke that suddenly filled the air; she did not hear the approaching step that was muffled also, not to frighten the birds away. She remained gazing intently into the water, half bent forward, her hand grasping the slender branch of a willow, until suddenly, in the mystic pool, a face looked over her shoulder--the face of her fate. CHAPTER XXIV. Something like a startled cry burst from Leonora's lips as she thus beheld that face beside her own--that fair, strong, handsome face that was as familiar as her own--the face of Clive, Lord Lancaster. She believed for a moment that his face had indeed arisen from the depths of the enchanted pool, and after that one startled cry she was silent, watching it with dilated eyes and bated breath, expecting every moment to see it fade into the nothingness from which it had sprung. But, instead of fading, it grew clearer to her sight; it changed its expression. At first it had a half-mischievous smile upon the lips and in the eyes; this changed to gravity, tenderness, and passion. It was the face of a lover on which Leonora now gazed with rapt interest, unconscious that-- "His eyes looked love To eyes that spake again." It was a moment of silent happiness. The light wind stirred the lily-buds on the bosom of the lake that held those two fair faces mirrored in its breast; the nightingale's song pierced their hearts with exquisite pleasure that bordered on pain. Leonora, wandering for one moment in the Land of Enchantment, was recalled to the present and to the actual by the man's folly. He should have stolen away as he had come, in silence, leaving her alone with her beautiful, strange illusion, to bear its fruit in due season; but-- "Men's hearts crave tangible, close tenderness, Love's presence, warm and near." He yielded to a tender impulse without trying to resist it. He was close beside her; his cheek was near her own; his eyes looked into her eyes as they gazed up from the water, and those soft orbs had a look in them that made him dizzy with delight. He slid his arms around the graceful bending form and whispered in her ear: "Leonora, is it fate?" Alas! "A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt!" Like one startled from a dream, she looked up and saw him holding her in that strong clasp, gazing into her face with a passion that frightened her. She tore herself from his arms. "How dared you? oh, how dared you?" she cried out, indignantly. Her angry words, her scornful glance, chilled the fire that burned within him. He realized his folly. Why had he touched her, frightened her, and so broken the spell of enchantment that held her? She would never forgive him, perhaps, for his temerity. "Did you think, because you were my Lord Lancaster, forsooth, and I only the housekeeper's niece, that you could insult me thus?"