st, as if she understood, as if
she were grateful; then letting her eyes rest on his with an
inscrutable look, she spoke softly to the horse and rode away, with
Donald and Bess clamouring joyously after her, as if they had found the
proceedings extremely trying.

Stafford flung his arm across his horse, and leaning against it, looked
after her, his eyes fixed wistfully on the slight, graceful figure,
until it was out of sight; then he gazed round him as if he were
suddenly returning from a new, mysterious region to the old familiar
world. Passion's marvellous spell still held him, he was still
throbbing with a half-painful ecstasy of her nearness, of the touch of
her hand, the magic of her voice.

For the first time he was in love. In love with the most exquisite, the
most wonderful of God's divine creatures. He knew, as he had said, that
her answer meant life or death to him, the life of infinite, nameless
joy, the death of life in death.

Was he going to lose her?

The very question set him trembling. He held out his quivering hand and
looked at it, and set his teeth. Heaven and earth, how strange it was!
This girl had taken possession of him body and soul; every fibre of his
being clamoured for her. To be near her, just to be able to see her,
hear her, meant happiness; to be torn from her--

The sweat broke out on his forehead and he laughed grimly.

"And this is love!" he said, between his teeth. "Yes--and it's the
only love of my life. God help me if you say 'no,' dearest! But you
must not--you must not!"

CHAPTER XV.

Quite an hour after Stafford had started to meet Ida, Miss Falconer
made her appearance, coming slowly down the stairs in the daintiest of
morning frocks, with her auburn hair shining like old gold in the
sunlight, and an expression of languor in her beautiful face which
would have done credit to a hot-house lily.

She had slept the sleep of the just--the maid who had gone to wake her
with her early cup of tea had been almost startled by the
statuesqueness of her beauty, as she lay with her head pillowed on her
snow-white arm and her wonderful hair streaming over the pillow--had
suffered herself to be dressed with imperial patience, and looked--as
Howard, who stood at the bottom of the stairs--said to himself, "like a
queen of the Incas descending to her throne-room."

"Good-morning, Miss Falconer," he greeted her. "It's a lovely morning;
you'll find it nicely aired." She smiled la