fancies,
into a mere cattle-path worn by the numerous herds of goats and oxen,
the music of whose jangling bells still came to them now and then in low
sweet snatches from the pastures of the valley and hill.

What was to be done? They were alone amid the all but unbroken silence,
and the eternal solitudes of the now terrible mountain. The darkness
began to brood heavily above them; no one was in sight, and when Kennedy
shouted there was no answer, but only an idle echo of his voice. Sheets
of mist were sweeping round them, and at length the gusts of wind drove
into their faces cold swirls of plashing rain.

"Oh, Mr Kennedy, what can we do? Do shout again."

Once more Kennedy sent his voice ringing through the mist and darkness,
and once more there was no answer, except that to their now excited
senses it seemed as if a scream of mocking laughter was carried back to
them upon the wind. And clinging tightly to his arm, as he wrapped her
in his plaid to shelter her from the wet, she again cried, "Oh, Edward,
what must we do?"

Even in that fearful situation--alone on the mountain, in the storm,--he
felt within him a thrill of strength and pleasure that she called him
Edward, and that she clung so confidingly upon his arm.

"Dare you stay here, Violet," he asked, "while I run forward and try to
catch some glimpse of a light?"

"Oh, I dare not, I dare not," she cried; "you might miss your way in
coming back to me, and I should be alone."

He saw that she loved him; he had read the secret of her heart, and he
was happy. Passionately he drew her towards him, and on her soft
fragrant cheek--on which the pallor of dread had not yet extinguished
the glow which had been kindled by the mountain wind--he printed a
lover's kiss; but in maidenly reserve she drew back, and was afraid to
have revealed her secret, and once more she said, "Oh, Mr Kennedy, we
shall die if we stay here unsheltered in this storm."

As though to confirm her words, the thunder began to growl, and while
the sounds of it were beaten back with long loud hollow buffetings from
the rocks on every side, the blue and winged flash of lightning
glittered before their eyes, cleaving a rift with dazzling and vivid
intensity amid the purple gloom.

"Stay here but one instant, Violet--Miss Home,"--he said; "I will climb
this rock to see if any light is near, and will be with you again in a
moment."

He bounded actively up the rock, reckless of danger, a