y clinging to him with
death-cold hands. "Oh, Lester, my love, tell me, what am I to do? He is
very old, quite forty, and I am only eighteen. I abhor him quite as much
as I love you, Lester. Tell me, dear, what am I to do?"

He gathered her close in his arms in an agony that words are too weak to
portray.

"You shall not, you must not, marry the man your father has selected for
you, my darling. You are mine, Faynie, and you must marry me," he cried,
hoarsely. "Heaven intended us for each other, and for no one else. You
shall be mine past the power of any one human to part us ere the
morrow's light dawns, if--if you wish it so."

She clung to him, weeping hysterically, answering:

"Oh, yes, Lester, let it be so. I will marry you, and you will take me
away from this place, where no one, save Claire--not even my
father--loves me."

He strained her to his throbbing heart with broken words, but at that
instant the shriek of an approaching train sounded upon his ears. He
tore himself away from her encircling embrace.

"To do all that I have to do, I must return to the city, quickly arrange
for the marriage and a suitable place to take my bride. I will return by
ten o'clock. Be at this gate, my darling, with whatever change of
clothing you wish to take with you. I will bring a carriage. The way by
carriage road from the city is less than seven miles, you know. We will
drive to the minister's in the village below. A few words and I shall
have the right to protect you through life, and oh! my darling, my idol,
my trusting little love, may God deal by me as I deal with you!"

Those were the last words Faynie heard, for in the next instant her
lover had torn himself free from her clinging arms and was dashing like
one mad through the drifts toward the railroad station again. Then, with
a strange, unaccountable presentiment of coming evil, Faynie Fairfax
turned and stole up the serpentine path into the house again.

In just an hour's time Lester Armstrong was hurrying along Broadway
again, making all haste toward his lodgings. Suddenly some one tapped
him on the shoulder, and a voice which he instantly recognised as his
cousin's said, laughingly:

"Both bent in the same direction, it seems. Well, we'll travel along
together to your lodging house, Lester."

But alas! Who can see the strange workings of destiny? In that instant
Lester Armstrong slipped on the icy pavement, and Kendale, bending
quickly over him, exclaimed: