Golden's white brocade shone with a silvery gleam as she fled through the moonlight, her white arms and neck gleamed like ivory through the golden mist of her streaming hair. She had crossed the green expanse of the lawn in safety. Her light feet struck into the path by the lake. When once she had crossed that path she would be into the shrubbery. She felt sure that she might mislead the determined follower then. But the race had been an unequal one. That flying leap over the flight of marble steps had decided the contest in the man's favor. Scarce a minute more and the dreaded touch fell on her shoulder, two strong arms were passed quickly around her waist, her head was drawn back against a manly breast, and to Golden's horror and consternation, she felt a pair of warm, mustached lips pressed fully and passionately upon her own. "Lovely Erma, may your spirit rest in peace after this fond kiss of love," he cried; and Golden, trying vainly to struggle out of his clasp, lifted her eyes and saw a dark, splendid, handsome face gazing into her own, with large, black eyes that were full of eager admiration and sparkled with pleasant excitement. "Let me go!" she cried, with her blue eyes full of angry tears, "let me go! How dared you--oh, how dared you _kiss_ me?" But the strong arms held her fast, although Bertram Chesleigh began to realize that it was not a phantom, but a real creature of flesh and blood he had kissed so warmly. He held her fast, and looked down with a smile into the girlish face that was so very beautiful even through the crimson flush of anger. "Do not be angry," he said. "You should be glad that I have kissed you." "Why should I be glad?" she demanded, in a sharp, imperious little voice. The dark eyes of little Golden's captor sparkled with mirth at her indignant question. "They told me up yonder at the hall," he replied, "that if a handsome man could catch and kiss the Glenalvan ghost its wandering spirit would be laid forever. Do you think that you can rest easy in your grave now, beautiful Erma?" Golden wrenched herself from his clasp, but he still held her so tightly by one hand that she could not leave him. She looked at him with bright eyes in which anger and reluctant mirth were strangely blended. His quaint humor was infectious. "Do you think yourself so very handsome, sir?" she demanded. "A lady told me so this evening," he replied, unblushingly. "One must always take a lady's word, must not one, fair Erma?" "I am not Erma," she replied, impetuously; "I am only Golden." "Golden! What a beautiful name!" cried Golden's captor. "Golden--_what_?" "Golden Glenalvan," she replied. "That is prettier still," he said; then he looked at her more closely. "Are you any kin to Clare and Elinor?" "Yes; we are cousins," the girl replied, frankly. She forgot how strange it was for her to be standing there talking to this stranger from whom she had been desperately fleeing a moment ago.