ould find it too hard to
face him afterwards."

"I don't understand."

"Orlando has great pride. If this enterprise fails I cannot answer for
him. He would be capable of anything. Why, Doris! what is the matter,
child? I never saw you look like that before."

She had been down on her knees regulating the lantern, and the sudden
flame, shooting up, had shown him her face turned up towards his in an
apprehension which verged on horror.

"Do I look frightened?" she asked, remembering herself and lightly
rising. "I believe that I am a little frightened. If--if anything should
go wrong! If an accident-" But here she remembered herself again and
quickly changed her tone. "But your confidence shall be mine. I
will believe in his good angel or--or in his self-command and great
resolution. I'll not be frightened any more."

But Oswald did not seem satisfied. He continued to look at her in vague
concern.

He hardly knew what to make of the intense feeling she had manifested.
Had Orlando touched her girlish heart? Had this cold-blooded nature,
with its steel-like brilliancy and honourable but stern views of life,
moved this warm and sympathetic soul to more than admiration? The
thought disturbed him so he forgot the nearness of the moment they were
all awaiting till a quick rasping sound from the hangar, followed by the
sudden appearance of an ever-widening band of light about its upper rim,
drew his attention and awakened them all to a breathless expectation.

The lid was rising. Now it was half-way up, and now, for the first time,
it was lifted to its full height and stood a broad oval disc against the
background of the forest. The effect was strange. The hangar had been
made brilliant by many lamps, and their united glare pouring from its
top and illuminating not only the surrounding treetops but the broad
face of this uplifted disc, roused in the awed spectator a thrill such
as in mythological times might have greeted the sudden sight of Vulcan's
smithy blazing on Olympian hills. But the clang of iron on iron would
have attended the flash and gleam of those unexpected fires, and here
all was still save for that steady throb never heard in Olympus or the
halls of Valhalla, the pant of the motor eager for flight in the upper
air.

As they listened in a trance of burning hope which obliterated all else,
this noise and all others near and distant, was suddenly lost in a loud
clatter of writhing and twisting boughs which