d the Christian name.

But, alas! Nell had heard it! She had, half mechanically, shrunk behind
the pedestal; she shrank still farther behind it as Drake spoke, and she
put up her hand on the cold marble as if for support. For she was
trembling in every limb, and a sensation as of approaching death was
creeping over her. The terrace and the two figures grew misty and
indistinct, the music of the band sounded like a blurred discord in her
ears, and the blood rushed through her veins like fire one moment and
like ice the next.

She would have rushed out of her hiding place and into the house, but
she could not move. Was she going to die? or was this awful, sickening
weakness only a warning that she was going to faint? She pressed her
forehead against the marble, and the icy coldness of the unsympathetic
stone revived her. She found that she could hear every word, though the
two had moved to the stone rail.

"It is quite a shock!" said Lady Luce. She put her handkerchief to her
lips, her eyes, and then looked up at him with the smile, the confession
of weakness, which is one of woman's most irresistible weapons.

"I--I am staying at the Chesneys'--you know the Chesneys? No? There is a
small party--some of us came over to-night to this dance--they are old
friends of the Maltbys. Drake, I can scarcely believe it is you!"

He stood beside her patiently, and yet impatiently. He was thinking of
Nell even at that moment; wondering where she was, how soon he could get
away from Lady Luce and find Nell.

"You are staying here?" she asked, meaning at the Maltbys'.

He nodded, thinking it well to leave her misconception uncorrected.

"How strange! Drake, it--it is like Fate!" she murmured; and, indeed,
she felt that it was.

"Like Fate?" he asked.

"Yes--that--that we should meet here, in this out-of-the way place, so
soon. Oh, Drake, if you knew how glad I am!"

She put out her hand and touched his arm with the timid touch, the
suggestion of a caress, which women can convey so significantly.

Drake glanced toward the open window apprehensively. Nell--any
one--might come out any moment, and----

"Shall we walk to the end of the terrace?" he said. "You will catch
cold----"

As he spoke he looked down at her. There was only a man's inquiry, and
consideration for a woman's bare shoulders, in the look; but to Nell,
whose eyes were fixed upon him with an agonized intentness, it seemed
that the look was eloquent of tendern