the dance, around her waist glimpsed a black
band, tipped by slender masculine fingers; above, a cynical countenance.
Or was it all cynical now? A brief glance showed more than the habitual
expression, a sedulousness--some passionate feeling? Lord Ronsdale's
look seemed once more to say he held and claimed her; that she was his,
or soon would be.

A fleeting picture; she was gone and other figures intervened. John
Steele stood with hands tightly clasped. Then his gaze gradually
lowered; he moved restlessly back and forth; but the music sounded
louder and he walked away from it, to the end of the balcony and again
looked off--into darkness.

The moments passed; a distant buzz replaced melody; the human murmur,
the scraping of strings. From the forest came a far-away cry, the
melancholy sound of some wood-creature. He continued motionless,
suddenly wheeled swiftly.

"That is you, Mr. Steele?" A voice, young, gay, sounded near; Jocelyn
Wray came toward him; from her shoulders floated a white scarf. "You
have come out for the freshness of the garden? Although," she added,
"you shouldn't altogether seclude yourself from the madding crowd."

"No?" In the eyes that met hers flashed a question, the question that he
had ever been asking himself since coming to Strathorn House, that had
driven him there.

Did she note the strangeness of the look she seemed to have surprised on
his face? Her own glance grew on the instant slightly puzzled, showed a
passing constraint; then her manner became light again. "No. Especially
as--You are leaving to-morrow, I believe?"

"Yes." He tried to speak in conventional tones; but his gaze swerved
from the graceful figure with its dim, white lines that changed and
fluttered in the faint breath of air, stealing so gently by them and
away. "My time is almost up; the allotted period of my brief Elysium!"
he half-laughed.

"And yet it was rather hard to get you here, wasn't it? You remember you
quite scorned our first invitation," gaily.

"Scorned?" In the semi-darkness he could only divine her features. "That
is hardly the word."

"Isn't it? Well, then, you had business more important," she laughed.

"Not more important,--imperative." Was his voice, beneath an assumption
of carelessness, just a shade uncertain? again it became conventional.
"I--have enjoyed myself immensely."

"Have you?" She glanced at him; a flicker of light touched the strong
face. "So good of you to say so! I believ