undercurrent of kindliness. "_Every_ morning!" Does she really mean that
he may come up to this enchanting spot every morning?

It had, of course, occurred to him, during prayers, in the early part of
the day, when he had sat out the dreary service with exemplary patience,
and his eyes fixed on the Blount pew, that, perhaps, he might be allowed
to call once a week at the Hall, without being considered by the inmates
an absolute nuisance--but every day! this sounds too good to be true,
and is, therefore, received by him with caution.

"You needn't be afraid of me," he says, apropos of Dulce's last remark.
"I can speak no language but my own, and that badly."

"What a comfort," says Miss Blount. She is now wondering if she has done
her duty by her new guest, and if she has been everything to him that
she ought to have been, considering her promise to Roger.

"Where is Fabian?" she asks, suddenly, peering through the dusky gloom.
"Are you there, darling?"

But no one answers her. It seems to them, that, tiring of their company,
he has betaken himself to solitude and the house, once more. No one has
seen him go, but, during the last few minutes, a gray black cloud has
been slowly wandering over the pale-faced moon, and forms and features
have been more indistinct. Perhaps Portia, who is sitting on the outer
edge of the group, might have noticed his departure, but, if so, she
says nothing of it.

Time runs on. Some one yawns, and then tries vainly to turn it into a
sigh. The bell from some distant steeple in the little slumbering
village far below in the plain, tolls slowly, solemnly, as though to
warn them that eleven more hours have slipped into the great and
fathomless sea of Eternity.

"Ah! so late!" says Dulce, with a little start. "How swiftly time has
gone to-night. I never knew it fly with such hot haste. That proves I
have been happy, does it not?"

She smiles down upon Mr. Gower, who is still at her feet, and he smiles
up only too willingly at her.

At this moment a dark figure emerges from amongst the moaning firs, and
comes toward them. In the uncertain and somewhat ghostly light it
appears of an unusually large size. Dulce draws her breath a little
quickly, and Julia, feeling her duty lies in this direction, gives way
to a dainty scream. Portia, whose eyes have been upon this new comer for
a full minute before the others noticed him, only turns her head away,
and lets it sink a degree more lazily int