She glanced down quickly, and saw old Dinah and her master crossing the lawn, their grotesque shadows flying long and dark before them in the brilliant moonlight. Quick as thought Elinor was out of her seat, and gliding softly through the door in quest of her father. Before old Glenalvan and his servant had crossed the lawn, two dark figures stole forth from the hall and silently followed them. * * * * * On the green border of the silver lake two figures were standing in the beautiful moonlight. One was a man, tall, dark, splendid, with a princely beauty. His arm was thrown protectingly about a slender form that clung lovingly to his side. It was Golden Glenalvan, dressed in a dark suit and light cloth jacket, a neat, little walking-hat, set jauntily on her streaming, golden curls. Her blue eyes were lifted tenderly, and yet anxiously to her lover's face. "Oh, Bert," she said, giving him the tender name by which he had taught her to call him, "you must indeed let me go now. We have been saying good-bye at least a half an hour." "Parting is such a sweet pain," said the lover, bending to kiss the tempting, up-turned lips. "Give me just one more minute, my darling." "But I have been out so long," she objected, faintly. "What if black mammy should awake and find me gone?" "There is not the slightest danger," said Bertram Chesleigh carelessly. "The old woman sleeps so soundly that a thunder-clap would scarcely wake her." But just at that moment of his fancied security, old Dinah, in Golden's deserted chamber, was vigorously shaking her empty night-dress in a dazed attempt to evolve from its snowy folds the strangely missing girl. Golden smiled, then sighed faintly. He kissed her lips before the sigh had fairly breathed over them. "If you must indeed go, my darling," he said to her in a low voice, freighted with passionate tenderness, "tell me once again, my little Golden, how dearly you love me." "Love you," echoed the beautiful girl, and there was a Heaven of tenderness in the starry blue eyes she raised to his face. "Oh, my dearest, if I talked to you until the beautiful sun rose to-morrow, I could not put my love into words. It is deep in my heart, and nothing but death can ever tear it thence." She threw her arms around his neck, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. There was a silence broken only by the soft sigh of the rippling waves, while they stood "tranced in long embraces, Mixed with kisses, sweeter, sweeter Than anything on earth." On that hush of exquisite silence that brooded round them, broke hastening footsteps and angry voices. The lovers started back from each other in dismay to find themselves surrounded by an astonished group. Old Dinah formed a central and conspicuous figure, beyond which old Hugh Glenalvan's silvery locks fluttered forlornly in the breeze.