ing. "It gives one such a sense of isolation," she
added.

"We are completely isolated," he returned. "Hardly a soul comes this
way. Some months ago when I wandered down here, a native who was
chopping wood said the place was haunted, for which reason the people
give it a wide berth."

"Haunted!" exclaimed Joyce fearfully, as she crept closer to his side.

"The natives are terribly superstitious and easily scared. The devil is
said to be in possession of the palace, and ill-luck or disaster to
overtake any who enter it. Are you nervous?"

"Not if you are not. You see, I have such immense faith in you," she
said with charming flattery.

"Then we'll brave the fellow together." He hacked at the creepers and
tore them aside, and having cleared a path, drew her towards the gloomy
walls visible through gaps in the foliage. It was a friendly little hand
that nestled confidingly in his. "These wild convolvuli grow with such
amazing rapidity, that in a month of rainy weather the whole path is
blocked. If you were put to sleep in the ruin by a wave of the devil's
wand, the creepers would make a wall and shut you in, like the princess
in the fairy tale. How would you like to sleep here for a hundred years
walled in by creepers as high as the tree-tops?"

"And be awakened by a splendid prince?" she laughed, entering into the
spirit of his raillery.

"I can picture him tearing his way through with the instinct to kiss
you, so as to learn the true meaning of Life! You don't need enchantment
to turn you into the Sleeping Beauty; you are that now. It would be
interesting to see what would happen were the Prince to arrive."

"He arrived when I met Ray," she said colouring richly.

"You think he did, but that was in your dreams. You are not awake yet,
so your experience has yet to come." He avoided her eyes while he spoke
and left her puzzled to follow his thought.

"I cannot understand you. Why should you say I am asleep?"

"Because it is written in your eyes."

"Then I am a somnambulist?" she laughed.

"Yes. A dangerous one," and they laughed together.

"Who is going to wake me?" she coquetted with a pretty drooping of her
lashes.

Dalton stole a look at her pouting lips, thinking he would defer the
reply to her question for a while. She put him in mind of a child
consciously playing with fire, yet expecting to escape unscorched. Of
course, she would have to learn her mistake. She knew perfectly that
nine out of ten